Does Below-Above Canopy Air Mass Decoupling Impact Temperate Floodplain Forest CO2 Exchange?

Abstract

Environmental conditions influence forest ecosystems and consequently, its productivity. Thus, the quantification of forest CO2 exchange is a critical requirement to estimate the CO2 balance of forests on a local and regional scale. Besides interpreting the annual CO2 exchange corresponding to environmental conditions over the studied years (2015–2020) at the floodplain forest in Lanžhot, Czech Republic (48.6815483 N, 16.9463317 E), the influence of below-above canopy air mass decoupling on above canopy derived CO2 exchange is the focus of this study. For this purpose, we applied the eddy covariance (EC) method above and below the forest canopy, assessing different single- and two-level flux filtering strategies. We focused on one example year (2019) of concurrent below and above canopy EC measurements. We hypothesized that conventional single-level EC flux filtering strategies such as the friction velocity (u*) filtering approach might not be sufficient to fully capture the forest CO2 exchange at the studied ecosystem. Results suggest that decoupling occurs regularly, but the implication on the above canopy derived EC CO2 fluxes appears to be negligible on an annual scale. We attribute this to the open canopy and flat EC tower surrounding terrain which inhibits horizontal removal of below-canopy respired CO2.