Journal
ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES
Volume 11, Issue 11, Pages 6075-6090Publisher
COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
DOI: 10.5194/amt-11-6075-2018
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Funding
- Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response (MEOPAR) Network of Centres of Excellence
- Polar Knowledge Canada
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund
- Nunavut Arctic College
- Irving Shipbuilding Inc.
- University of Calgary
- Ekaluktutiak Hunters & Trappers Organization
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The Arctic marine environment plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. However, there remain large uncertainties in how sea ice affects air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2), partially due to disagreement between the two main methods (enclosure and eddy covariance) for measuring CO2 flux (F-CO2). The enclosure method has appeared to produce more credible F-CO2 than eddy covariance (EC), but is not suited for collecting long-term, ecosystem-scale flux datasets in such remote regions. Here we describe the design and performance of an EC system to measure F-CO2 over landfast sea ice that addresses the shortcomings of previous EC systems. The system was installed on a 10 m tower on Qikirtaarjuk Island - a small rock outcrop in Dease Strait located roughly 35 km west of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The system incorporates recent developments in the field of air-sea gas exchange by measuring atmospheric CO2 using a closed-path infrared gas analyzer (IRGA) with a dried sample airstream, thus avoiding the known water vapor issues associated with using open-path IRGAs in low-flux environments. A description of the methods and the results from 4 months of continuous flux measurements from May through August 2017 are presented, highlighting the winter to summer transition from ice cover to open water. We show that the dried, closed-path EC system greatly reduces the magnitude of measured F-CO2 compared to simultaneous open-path EC measurements, and for the first time reconciles EC and enclosure flux measurements over sea ice. This novel EC installation is capable of operating year-round on solar and wind power, and therefore promises to deliver new insights into the magnitude of CO2 fluxes and their driving processes through the annual sea ice cycle.
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