Quality control of CarboEurope flux data – Part 1: Coupling footprint analyses with flux data quality assessment to evaluate sites in forest ecosystems

M. Göckede (1) , T. Foken (1) , M. Aubinet (2) , M. Aurela (3) , J. Banza (4) , C. Bernhofer (5) , J. M. Bonnefond (6) , Y. Brunet (6) , A. Carrara (7) , R. Clement (8) , E. Dellwik (9) , J. Elbers (10) , W. Eugster (11) , J. Fuhrer (12) , A. Granier (13) , T. Grünwald (5) , B. Heinesch (2) , I. A. Janssens (14) , A. Knohl (11, 15) , R. Koeble (16) , T. Laurila (3) , B. Longdoz (13) , G. Manca (16) , M. Marek (17) , T. Markkanen (1, 18) , J. Mateus (19) , G. Matteucci (20) , M. Mauder (1) , M. Migliavacca (21) , S. Minerbi (22) , J. Moncrieff (8) , L. Montagnani (22) , E. Moors (10) , J.-M. Ourcival (23) , D. Papale (24) , J. Pereira (25) , K. Pilegaard (9) , G. Pita (19) , S. Rambal (23) , C. Rebmann (15) , A. Rodrigues (26) , E. Rotenberg (27) , M. J. Sanz (7) , P. Sedlak (28) , G. Seufert (16) , L. Siebicke (1) , Jean-François Soussana (29) , R. Valentini (24) , T. Vesala (18) , H. Verbeeck (14) , D. Yakir (27)

1 Universität Bayreuth
2 University of Agricultural Sciences
3 FMI - Finnish Meteorological Institute
4 Universidade de Évora
5 TU Dresden - Technische Universität Dresden = Dresden University of Technology
6 EPHYSE - Écologie fonctionnelle et physique de l'environnement
7 Foundation CEAM
8 Edin. - University of Edinburgh
9 DTU - Danmarks Tekniske Universitet = Technical University of Denmark
10 Alterra
11 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich]
12 Agroscope Research Station ART
13 EEF - Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières [devient SILVA en 2018]
14 UA - University of Antwerp
15 MPI-BGC - Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
16 JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Ispra]
17 AS CR - Institute of Systems Biology and Ecology
18 Helsingin yliopisto = Helsingfors universitet = University of Helsinki
19 IST - Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
20 CNR-ISAFOM
21 LTDA - Remote Sensing of Environmental Dynamics Laboratory [Milano]
22 Forest Department
23 CEFE - Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
24 Università degli studi della Tuscia [Viterbo]
25 ISA - Instituto Superior de Agronomia [Lisboa]
26 Estaçao Florestal Nacional
27 Weizman Institute of Science
28 IAP - Institute of Atmospheric Physics [Prague]
29 UREP - Unité de recherche sur l'Ecosystème Prairial

We applied a site evaluation approach combining Lagrangian Stochastic footprint modeling with a quality assessment approach for eddy-covariance data to 25 forested sites of the CarboEurope-IP network. The analysis addresses the spatial representativeness of the flux measurements, instrumental effects on data quality, spatial patterns in the data quality, and the performance of the coordinate rotation method. Our findings demonstrate that application of a footprint filter could strengthen the CarboEurope-IP flux database, since only one third of the sites is situated in truly homogeneous terrain. Almost half of the sites experience a significant reduction in eddy-covariance data quality under certain conditions, though these effects are mostly constricted to a small portion of the dataset. Reductions in data quality of the sensible heat flux are mostly induced by characteristics of the surrounding terrain, while the latent heat flux is subject to instrumentation-related problems. The Planar-Fit coordinate rotation proved to be a reliable tool for the majority of the sites using only a single set of rotation angles. Overall, we found a high average data quality for the CarboEurope-IP network, with good representativeness of the measurement data for the specified target land cover types.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

M. Göckede, T. Foken, M. Aubinet, M. Aurela, J. Banza, et al.. Quality control of CarboEurope flux data – Part 1: Coupling footprint analyses with flux data quality assessment to evaluate sites in forest ecosystems. Biogeosciences, 2008, 5 (2), pp.433-450. ⟨10.5194/bg-5-433-2008⟩. ⟨hal-00330700⟩