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Abstract: A boreal bog located in the James Bay lowlands, Canada, was instrumented with an open-path gas analyzer to monitor the turbulent fluxes of methane throughout the summer of 2012. The mostly continuous eddy covariance measurements permitted the study of methane dynamics at the hourly, daily and seasonal scales. To exclude data segments for which the biological methane fluxes were underestimated due to inefficient atmospheric transport under stable stratification, we applied a novel approach based on both the atmospheric stability parameter ζ = z/L and the friction velocity u ∗, where z is the measurement height and L the Obukhov length. The field measurements revealed the existence of at least one sustained ebullition event, triggered by low barometric pressures, a declining water table and increasing mechanical turbulence – suggesting that large-scale release of methane bubbles can be an important transport mechanism of methane in boreal bogs. The validity of similarity scaling for atmospheric methane under convective conditions was also assessed and the normalized standard deviations of methane concentrations did not scale well with ζ, highlighting the heterogeneity in natural methane production and release across the bog. Overall the hourly emissions ranged between −2.0 and 32.1 mg CH4 m−2 h−1, with a summertime mean of 2.4 mg CH4 m−2 h−1. At the daily scale, the two main controls on methane emissions were found to be the water table position and the peat temperature at 0.3 m under the surface. Contrary to other studies, seasonal methane emissions peaked when the water table was at its maximum distance from the surface, around mid-August. No clear diurnal pattern could be found in methane emissions, indicating that methane was produced quite deep within the peat. The seasonal emissions were estimated at 4.4 g CH4 m−2, and compared well with other observations over similar landscapes using different measurement techniques. Given that methane releases and transport are greatly affected by local characteristics such as climate and vegetative cover, this study emphasizes the need for further in situ continuous measurements of methane fluxes across northern peatlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effects of climatic factors and vegetation type on evapotranspiration (E) and water use efficiency (WUE) were analyzed using tower-based eddy-covariance (EC) data for nine mature forest sites, two peatland sites and one grassland site across an east–west continental-scale transect in Canada during the period 2003–2006. The seasonal pattern of E was closely linked to growing-season length and rainfall distribution. Although annual precipitation (P) during the observation period was highly variable among sites (250−1450mm), minimum annual E was not less than 200mm and was limited to 400−500mm where annual P exceeded 700mm. Site-specific interannual variability in E could be explained by either changes in total P or variations in solar irradiance. A highly positive linear correlation was found between monthly mean values of E and net radiation (R n ) at the grassland site (AB-GRL), the two peatland sites (AB-WPL and ON-EPL), and only one of the forest sites (coastal Douglas-fir, BC-DF49) whereas a hysteretic relationship at the other forest sites indicated that E lagged behind the typical seasonal progression of R n . Results of a cross-correlation analysis between daily (24-h) E and R n revealed that site-specific lag times were between 10 and 40 days depending on the lag of vapour pressure deficit (D) behind R n and the decoupling coefficient, Ω. There was significant seasonal variation in daytime mean dry-foliage Priestley–Taylor α with maxima occurring in the growing season at all sites except BC-DF49 where it was relatively constant (∼0.55) throughout all years. Annual means of daytime dry-foliage α mostly ranging between 0.5 and 0.7 implied stomatal limitation to transpiration. Increasing D significantly decreased canopy conductance (g c ) at the forest sites but had little effect at the peatland and grassland sites, while variation in soil water content caused only minor changes in g c . At all sites, a strong linear correlation between monthly mean values of gross primary production (GPP) and E resulted in water use efficiency being relatively constant. While at most sites, WUE was in the range of 2.6–3.6gCkg−1 H2O, the BC-DF49 site had the highest WUE of the twelve sites with values near 6.0gCkg−1 H2O. Of the two peatland sites, AB-WPL, a western treed fen, had a significantly higher WUE (∼3.0gCkg−1 H2O) than ON-EPL, an eastern ombrotrophic bog (∼1.8gCkg−1 H2O), which was related to peatland productivity and plant functional type. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]