Abstract
Abstract. The WPL (Webb, Pearman, and Leuning) correction is fully accepted to correct trace gas fluxes like CO2 for density fluctuations due to water vapour and temperature fluctuations for open-path gas analysers. It is known that this additive correction can be on the order of magnitude of the actual flux. However, this is hardly ever included in the analysis of data quality. An example from the Arctic shows the problems, because the size of the correction is a multiple of the actual flux. As a general result, we examined and tabulated the magnitude of the WPL correction for carbon dioxide flux as a function of sensible and latent heat flux. Furthermore, we propose a parameter to better estimate possible deficits in data quality and recommend integrating the quality flag derived with this parameter into the general study of small carbon dioxide fluxes.
Highlights
The WPL (Webb, Pearman, and Leuning) correction (Webb et al, 1980) has been fully accepted in the international scientific community for many years
It is obvious that CO2 fluxes on the order of 1 μmol m−2 s−1 can be significantly altered by the WPL correction
According to the original work on the WPL correction (Webb et al, 1980), it should be noted that in some conditions the correction is expected to be on the same order of magnitude as the flux
Summary
The WPL (Webb, Pearman, and Leuning) correction (Webb et al, 1980) has been fully accepted in the international scientific community for many years. The absolute value of the correction is in the range from −2.5 to +10 μmol m−2 s−1 depending on the magnitude of the sensible and latent heat flux. K. Jentzsch et al.: Importance of the WPL correction judgements of water vapour and carbon dioxide measurements with an open-path gas analyser. Errors in CO2 flux measurements in cold climate conditions have often been associated with the Burba correction (Burba et al, 2008; Kittler et al, 2017) This correction is relevant when convective processes occur at heated windows of the gas analyser. The WPL correction is relevant for the measurement of the partial density, e.g. of CO2, with open-path gas analysers, and the basic equations are as follows: (Foken et al, 2012).
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