Characterisation of analytical uncertainty in chamber soil flux measurements

Cowan, Nicholas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7473-7916; Levy, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8505-1901; Tigli, Maddalena ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8083-0589; Toteva, Galina; Drewer, Julia ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6263-6341. 2025 Characterisation of analytical uncertainty in chamber soil flux measurements. European Journal of Soil Science, 76 (2), e70104. 10, pp. 10.1111/ejss.70104

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Abstract/Summary

Flux chamber methodologies are used at the global scale to measure the exchange of trace gases between terrestrial surfaces (soils) and the atmosphere. These methods evolved as a simplistic necessity to measure gas fluxes from a time when gas analysers were limited in capability and costs were prohibitively high, since which thousands of studies have deployed a wide variety of chamber methodologies to build vast datasets of soil fluxes. However, analytical limitations of the methods are often overlooked and are poorly understood by the flux community, leading to confusion and misreporting of observations in some cases. In recent years, the number of commercial suppliers of gas analysers claiming to be capable of measuring trace gas fluxes from chambers has drastically increased, with a myriad of analysers (and low‐cost sensors) now on offer with a wide variety of capabilities. While chamber designs and the capabilities of analysers vary by orders of magnitude, the rudimentary analytical uncertainties of individual flux measurements can still be standardised for direct comparison of methods. This study aims to serve as a guide to calculate the analytical uncertainty of chamber flux methodologies in a standardised way for direct comparisons. We provide comparisons of a variety of chamber measurement methodologies (closed static and dynamic chamber methods) to highlight the impact of analytical noise, chamber size, enclosure time and number of gas samples. With the associated tools, researchers, commercial suppliers and other stakeholders in the flux community can easily estimate the limitations of a particular methodology to establish and tailor the suitability of particular chambers and instruments to experimental requirements.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1111/ejss.70104
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Land-Atmosphere Interactions (2025-)
ISSN:	1351-0754
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	error analysis, gas chromatography, greenhouse gas, infrared analyser, soil flux
NORA Subject Terms:	Agriculture and Soil Science Atmospheric Sciences Data and Information
Date made live:	17 Apr 2025 08:53 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539264

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