Non-turbulent fluxes of carbon dioxide and sensible heat—A comparison of three forested sites

The advection initiative ADVEX within CarboEurope-IP conducted advection experiments at three European coniferous sites in 2005 and 2006. All experiments shared the same geometry and instrumentation. Data of the ADVEX experiments were used to calculate advective fluxes of carbon dioxide and sensible heat using exactly the same method. However, the advective flux of sensible heat can be assessed more easily than the carbon dioxide flux with its associated complex measurements of gas concentrations. We explored the possibility to use advective fluxes of sensible heat as a proxy for the corresponding flux of carbon dioxide despite somewhat differing sinks and sources. On average, advective fluxes of sensible heat were of opposite sign in relation to the advective fluxes of carbon dioxide for the three investigated sites, especially during nighttime. Therefore, the respective gradients were of opposite sign, on average, for vertical and (to a lesser extent) horizontal direction. This is not as obvious for horizontal direction as for the vertical direction. A scheme is presented to explain the correlation of the respective gradients for different conditions. Based on the gained insights and regression statistics, two simple empirical models were tested to derive advective fluxes of carbon dioxide from advective fluxes of sensible heat. Our results suggest that the advective flux of sensible heat could be taken as an indicator concerning the presence and sign of carbon dioxide advection. However, the suitability of advective fluxes of sensible heat as a quantitative proxy for advective fluxes of carbon dioxide is more problematic because the representativeness including the magnitude of advection derived from advection measurements is not yet clarified. An inspection of the budget of sensible heat and carbon dioxide revealed considerable changes by advection. The results indicate that the budget of carbon dioxide might be generally more affected by the investigated non-turbulent advective fluxes than the budget of sensible heat.