Observational relationships between ammonia, carbon dioxide and water vapor under a wide range of meteorological and turbulent conditions: RITA-2021 campaign

Abstract

Abstract. We present a comprehensive observational approach that aims to establish relationships between the surface–atmosphere exchange of ammonia (NH3) and CO2 uptake and transpiration by vegetation. In doing so, we study relationships useful for the improvement and development of NH3 flux representations in models. The NH3 concentration and flux are measured using a novel open-path miniDOAS (differential optical absorption spectroscopy) measurement setup, taken during the 5-week Ruisdael Land–Atmosphere Interactions Intensive Trace-gas and Aerosol measurement (RITA-2021) campaign (25 August until 12 October 2021) at the Ruisdael Observatory in Cabauw, the Netherlands. After filtering for unobstructed flow, sufficient turbulent mixing and CO2 uptake, we find the diurnal variability in the NH3 flux to be characterized by daytime emissions (0.05 µgm-2s-1 on average) and deposition at sunrise and sunset (−0.05 µgm-2s-1 on average). We first compare the NH3 flux to the observed gross primary production (GPP), representing CO2 uptake, and latent heat flux (LvE), representing net evaporation. Next, we study the observations following the main drivers of the dynamic vegetation response, which are photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), temperature (T) and the water vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Our findings indicate the dominance of the stomatal emission of NH3, with a high correlation between the observed emissions and both LvE (0.70) and PAR (0.72), as well as close similarities in the diurnal variability in the NH3 flux and GPP. However, efforts to establish relationships are hampered by the high diversity in the NH3 sources of the active agricultural region and the low data availability after filtering. Our findings show the need to collocate meteorological, carbon and nitrogen studies to advance our understanding of NH3 surface exchange and its representation.