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Wildfires have been effectively suppressed in the managed boreal forests of Fennoscandia for over a century. However, recent extremely hot and dry summers have highlighted the vulnerability of these forests to increasing wildfire frequency as a result of climate change. The carbon stored by managed forests plays a key role in many national climate mitigation strategies and more data is needed to assess how forest management shapes the carbon balance of these forests, including those recovering from wildfire. We established two eddy covariance towers in the area burnt by the Ljusdal fire, which affected over 9000 ha during the extreme 2018 wildfire season in Sweden. The two towers measured CO2 fluxes during the first four growing seasons after the fire at two Pinus sylvestris stands with contrasting fire impacts and forest management schemes. At one site, a mature stand had survived low severity fire but was then salvage-logged and reseeded (6 months after the fire), whilst the other site represented a young stand that was killed by high severity fire and replanted with Pinus sylvestris seedlings (2 years after the fire). After the fire, both sites were net CO2 sources at the annual scale. However, the site with dead young trees and replanted seedlings showed a faster recovery towards becoming a CO2 sink, with days of net CO2 uptake during the peak of the growing season three years after the fire. Preliminary results suggest that similar magnitudes of carbon were emitted as CO2 in the first 4 years after the fire compared to the carbon emitted during the fire itself, underlining the importance of monitoring forest CO2 fluxes and the impacts of management decisions during the initial post-fire years.

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Northern forest soils are a major carbon (C) reservoir of global importance. To estimate how the C balance in these soils will change, the roles of tree roots and soil microbes in C balance should first be decoupled. This study determined how the activity of heterotrophs and tree roots together with root-associated microbes in the rhizosphere varies in coniferous forest soils in boreal, hemiboreal, and temperate climates along a latitudinal gradient using a trenching approach. We created experimental plots without living tree roots, measured soil respiration (CO2 efflux) from these and from unmanipulated plots using the chamber technique, and partitioned the efflux into root-rhizosphere (RR) and heterotrophic (RH) respiration. The share of RR in ecosystem gross primary production (GPP) decreased from north to south in the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and the Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) forests, with the exception of a mixed site, where the share of RR in GPP varied strongly between the years. RR per ground area and per root biomass were mainly independent of climate within the gradient. RH per ground area increased from north to south with temperature, while RH per soil C did not change with temperature. Soil moisture did not significantly affect the respiration components in the northernmost site, whereas soil moisture was positively connected with RH and negatively with RR in other Scots pine sites and positively connected with RR in pure Norway spruce stands. The dynamic ecosystem model LPJ-GUESS was able to capture the seasonal dynamics of RH and RR at the sites, but overall accuracy varied markedly between the sites, as the model underestimated RH in the southern site and RR elsewhere. Our study provides knowledge about the nature of soil respiration components. The valuable insights can be used in more accurate land-ecosystem modelling of forest ecosystems.

The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a pan-European research infrastructure which provides harmonized and high precision scientific data on the carbon cycle and the greenhouse gas (GHG) budget. All stations have to undergo a rigorous assessment before being labeled, i.e. receiving approval to join the network. In this paper, we present the labeling process for the ICOS atmospheric network through the 23 stations that have been labeled between November 2017 and November 2019. We describe the labeling steps as well as the quality controls used to verify that the ICOS data (CO2, CH4, CO and meteorological measurements) attain the expected quality level defined within ICOS. To ensure the quality of the GHG data, three to four calibration gases and two target gases, one measured two to three times a day, the other with the calibration gases (twice a month) are measured. The data are controlled on a weekly basis and tests on the station sampling lines are performed twice a year. From these high-quality data, we conclude that regular calibrations of the CO2, CH4 and CO analyzers used here (twice a month) are important in particular for carbon monoxide (CO) due to the analyzer's variability and that reducing the number of calibration injections (from four to three) in a calibration sequence is possible and permits saving gas and extend the calibration gas lifespan. We also show that currently, the on-site water vapor correction test does not deliver quantitative results possibly due to environmental factors. Thus the use of a drying system is strongly recommended. Finally, the mandatory regular intake line tests are shown to be useful to detect artifacts and leaks as shown here via three different examples at the stations.

Biogeochemical cycling of elements largely occurs in dissolved state, but many elements may also be bound to natural nanoparticles (NNP, 1-100 nm) and fine colloids (100-450 nm). We examined the hypothesis that the size and composition of stream water NNP and colloids vary systematically across Europe. To test this hypothesis, 96 stream water samples were simultaneously collected in 26 forested headwater catchments along two transects across Europe. Three size fractions (~1-20 nm, >20-60 nm, and >60 nm) of NNP and fine colloids were identified with Field Flow Fractionation coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and an organic carbon detector. The results showed that NNP and fine colloids constituted between 2 ± 5% (Si) and 53 ± 21% (Fe; mean ± SD) of total element concentrations, indicating a substantial contribution of particles to element transport in these European streams, especially for P and Fe. The particulate contents of Fe, Al, and organic C were correlated to their total element concentrations, but those of particulate Si, Mn, P, and Ca were not. The fine colloidal fractions >60 nm were dominated by clay minerals across all sites. The resulting element patterns of NNP

[1] Drought is typically associated with a lack of precipitation, whereas the contribution of evapotranspiration and runoff to drought evolution is not well understood. Here we use unique long-term observations made in four headwater catchments in central and western Europe to reconstruct storage anomalies and study the drivers of storage anomaly evolution during drought. We provide observational evidence for the “drought-paradox” in that region: a consistent and significant increase in evapotranspiration during drought episodes, which acts to amplify the storage anomalies. In contrast, decreases in runoff act to limit storage anomalies. Our findings stress the need for the correct representation of evapotranspiration and runoff processes in drought indices.

Accurate measurements of evapotranspiration are required for many meteorological, climatological, ecological, and hydrological research applications and developments. Here we examine and compare two well-established methods to determine evapotranspiration at the site level: lysimeter-based measurements (EL) and eddy-covariance (EC) flux measurements (EEC). The analyses are based on parallel measurements carried out with these two methods at the research catchment Rietholzbach in northeastern Switzerland, and cover the time period June 2009 to December 2015. The measurements are compared on various time scales, and with respect to a 40-year lysimeter-based evapotranspiration time series. Overall, the lysimeter and EC measurements agree well, especially on the annual time scale. On that time scale, the long-term lysimeter measurements also correspond well with catchment water-balance estimates of evapotranspiration. This highlights the representativeness of the site-level lysimeter and EC measurements for the entire catchment despite their comparatively small source areas and the heterogeneous land use and topography within the catchment. Furthermore, we identify that lack of reliable EC measurements during and following rainfall events (due to limitations of the measurement technique under these conditions) significantly contributes to an underestimation of EEC and to the overall energy balance gap at the site.

Summary Many environmental and hydrological applications require knowledge about soil moisture. Its measurement accuracy is known to depend on the sensor technique, which is sensitive to soil characteristics such as texture, temperature, bulk density and salinity. However, the calibration functions provided by instrument manufacturers are generally developed under laboratory conditions, and their accuracy for field applications is rarely investigated, in particular over long time periods and in comparison with other sensors types. In this paper, four side-by-side profile soil moisture measurements down to 110 cm using three low-cost sensors and one high-accuracy and high-cost time domain reflectometry (TDR) sensor are compared over a 2-year period at a clay loam site in Switzerland. The low-cost instruments include the (1) 10HS (Decagon Devices, United States), (2) CS616 (Campbell Scientific, United States), and (3) SISOMOP (SMG University of Karlsruhe, Germany) sensors, which are evaluated against the (4) TDR-based TRIME-IT/-EZ (IMKO GmbH, Germany) sensors. For the comparison, the calibration functions provided by the manufacturers are applied for each sensor type. The sensors are evaluated based on daily data regarding their representation of the volumetric water content (VWC) and its anomalies, as well as the respective temperature dependency of the measurements. Furthermore, for each sensor type the actual evapotranspiration is estimated using the soil water balance approach and compared with measurements from a weighing lysimeter. It is shown that the root mean square difference (RMSD) of VWC for the low-cost sensors compared to the TDR measurements are up to 0.3 m3/m3, with highest values in near-surface layers. However, the RMSD for the VWC anomalies are lower compared to those for absolute values. We conclude that under the studied conditions none of the evaluated low-cost sensors has a level of performance consistent with the respective manufacturer specifications. Hence the derivation of site-specific calibration functions is vital for the interpretation of measurements with low-cost soil moisture sensors. Furthermore, some weaknesses of the tested low-cost sensors such as the lack of sensitivity in certain soil moisture regimes or spurious dependency on soil temperature, imply intrinsic issues with the measurements derived with this type of instruments. This is particularly critical for a number of environmental and hydrological applications, including the assessment of remote sensing measurements.

Soil moisture is a key variable of the climate system. It constrains plant transpiration and photosynthesis in several regions of the world, with consequent impacts on the water, energy and biogeochemical cycles. Moreover it is a storage component for precipitation and radiation anomalies, inducing persistence in the climate system. Finally, it is involved in a number of feedbacks at the local, regional and global scales, and plays a major role in climate-change projections. In this review, we provide a synthesis of past research on the role of soil moisture for the climate system, based both on modelling and observational studies. We focus on soil moisture–temperature and soil moisture–precipitation feedbacks, and their possible modifications with climate change. We also highlight further impacts of soil moisture on climate, and the state of research regarding the validation of the relevant processes. There are promises for major advances in this research field in coming years thanks to the development of new validation datasets and multi-model initiatives. However, the availability of ground observations continues to be critical in limiting progress and should therefore strongly be fostered at the international level. Exchanges across disciplines will also be essential for bridging current knowledge gaps in this field. This is of key importance given the manifold impacts of soil moisture on climate, and their relevance for climate-change projections. A better understanding and quantification of the relevant processes would significantly help to reduce uncertainties in future-climate scenarios, in particular with regard to changes in climate variability and extreme events, as well as ecosystem and agricultural impacts.

This paper presents a multi-site (>20) analysis of the relative and absolute energy balance (EB) closure at European FLUXNET sites, as a function of the stability parameter xi, the friction velocity u., thermally-induced turbulence, and the time of the day. A focus of the analysis is the magnitude of EB deficits for very unstable conditions. A univariate analysis of the relative EB deficit as function of xi alone (both for individual sites and a synthesis for all sites), reveals that the relative EB deficit is larger for very unstable conditions (xi < -1.0) than for less unstable conditions (-0.02 > xi >= -1.0). A bivariate analysis of the relative EB deficit as function of both xi and u., however, indicates that for situations with comparable u. the closure is better for very unstable conditions than for less unstable conditions. Our results suggest that the poorer closure for very unstable conditions identified from the univariate analysis is due to reduced u. under these conditions. In addition, we identify that the conditions characterized by smallest relative EB deficits (elevated overall turbulence, mostly during day time) correspond to cases with the largest absolute EB deficits. Thus, the total EB deficit at the sites is induced mostly under these conditions, which is particularly relevant for evapotranspiration estimates. Further, situations with the largest relative EB deficits are generally characterized by small absolute EB deficits. We also find that the relative EB deficit does generally not correspond to the regression line of absolute EB deficit with the net radiation because there is a (positive or negative) offset. This can be understood from theoretical considerations. Finally, we find that storage effects explain a considerable fraction of the large relative (but small absolute) nocturnal EB deficits, and only a limited fraction of the overall relative and absolute EB deficits. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Studying the evaporation process and its link to the atmospheric circulation is central for a better understanding of the feedbacks between the surface water components and the atmosphere. In this study, we use 5 months of deuterium excess (d) measurements at the hourly to daily timescale from a cavity ring-down laser spectrometer to characterise the evaporation source of low-level continental water vapour at the long-term hydrometeorological monitoring site Rietholzbach in northeastern Switzerland. To reconstruct the phase change history of the air masses in which we measure the d signature and to diagnose its area of surface evaporation we apply a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic. With the help of a correlation analysis we investigate the strength of the relation between d measurements and the moisture source conditions. Temporal episodes with a duration of a few days of strong anticorrelation between d and relative humidity as well as temperature are identified. The role of plant transpiration, the large-scale advection of remotely evaporated moisture, the local boundary layer dynamics at the measurement site and recent precipitation at the site of evaporation are discussed as reasons for the existence of these modes of strong anticorrelation between d and moisture source conditions. We show that the importance of continental moisture recycling and the contribution of plant transpiration to the continental evaporation flux may be deduced from the d–relative humidity relation at the seasonal timescale as well as for individual events. The methodology and uncertainties associated with these estimates of the transpiration fraction of evapotranspiration are presented and the proposed novel framework is applied to individual events from our data set. Over the whole analysis period (August to December 2011) a transpiration fraction of the evapotranspiration flux over the continental part of the moisture source region of 62% is found albeit with a large event-to-event variability (0% to 89%) for continental Europe. During days of strong local moisture recycling a higher overall transpiration fraction of 76% (varying between 65% and 86%) is found. These estimates are affected by uncertainties in the assumptions involved in our method as well as by parameter uncertainties. An average uncertainty of 11% results from the strong dependency of the transpiration estimates on the choice of the non-equilibrium fractionation factor. Other uncertainty sources like the influence of boundary layer dynamics are probably large but more difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, such Lagrangian estimates of the transpiration part of continental evaporation could potentially be useful for the verification of model estimates of this important land–atmosphere coupling parameter., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 14 (8), ISSN:1680-7375, ISSN:1680-7367

Depressive disorders belong to the most frequent psychiatric disorders in Western Europe and the U.S.A. and are associated with high recurrence rates, high resistance to therapy, morbidity and mortality [1-4]. Currently, depressions have a share of 6.1% in total DALYs (DALY = Disability-Adjusted Life Year = as measure for disease burden), and thus are ranked at the 4th place in worldwide causes of disease [4]. It is expected that unipolar de‐ pression will become the main health-related cause of death in developed countries by 2020 [5,6]. In the E.U. alone, 18.5 million people have been diagnosed with major depression [7].

[1] The prealpine Rietholzbach research catchment provides long-term continuous hydroclimatological measurements in northeastern Switzerland, including lysimeter evapotranspiration measurements since 1976, and soil moisture measurements since 1994. We analyze here the monthly data record over 32 years (1976–2007), with a focus on the extreme 2003 European drought. In particular, we assess whether the well-established hypothesis that the 2003 event was due to spring precipitation deficits is valid at the site. The Rietholzbach measurements are found to be internally consistent and representative for a larger region in Switzerland. Despite the scale discrepancy (3.14 m2 versus 3.31 km2), the lysimeter seepage and catchment-wide streamflow show similar monthly dynamics. High correlations are further found with other streamflow measurements within the Thur river basin (1750 km2) and—for interannual anomalies—also in most of northern Switzerland. Analyses for 2003 confirm the occurrence of extreme heat and drought conditions at Rietholzbach. However, unlike findings from regional-scale modeling studies, they reveal a late onset of the soil moisture deficit (from June onward), despite large precipitation deficits from mid-February to mid-April. These early spring deficits were mostly compensated for by decreased runoff during this period and excess precipitation in the preceding weeks to months (including in the 2002 fall). Our results show that evapotranspiration excess in June 2003 was the main driver initiating the 2003 summer drought conditions in Rietholzbach, contributing 60% of the June 2003 water storage deficit. Finally, long-lasting drought effects on the lysimeter water storage due to rewetting inhibition were recorded until spring 2004.

[1] Soil moisture measurements are essential to understand land surface–atmosphere interactions. In this paper we evaluate the performance of the low-cost 10HS capacitance sensor (Decagon Devices, United States) using laboratory and field measurements. Measurements with 10HS sensors of volumetric water content (VWC, Vol.%), integrated absolute soil moisture (millimeters) over the measured soil column, and the loss of soil moisture (millimeters) for rainless days are compared with corresponding measurements from gravimetric samples and time domain reflectometry (TDR) sensors. The field measurements were performed at two sites with different soil texture in Switzerland, and they cover more than a year of parallel measurements in several depths down to 120 cm. For low VWC, both sensor types present good agreement for laboratory and field measurements. Nevertheless, the measurement accuracy of the 10HS sensor reading (millivolts) considerably decreases with increasing VWC: the 10HS sensors tend to become insensitive to variations of VWC above 40 Vol.%. The field measurements reveal a soil type dependency of the 10HS sensor performance, and thus limited applicability of laboratory calibrations. However, with site-specific exponential calibration functions derived from parallel 10HS and TDR measurements, the error of the 10HS compared to the TDR measurements can be decreased for soil moisture contents up to 30 Vol.%, and the day-to-day variability of soil moisture is captured. We conclude that the 10HS sensor is appropriate for setting up dense soil moisture networks when focusing on medium to low VWC and using an established site-specific calibration function. This measurement range is appropriate for several applications in climate research, but the identified performance limitations should be considered in investigations focusing on humid conditions and absolute soil moisture.

[1] Heterogeneity in small-scale subsurface flow processes does not necessarily lead to complex system behavior at larger scales. Here we use the simple dynamical systems approach recently proposed by Kirchner (WRR, 2009) to analyze, characterize, and simulate streamflow dynamics in the Swiss Rietholzbach catchment. The Rietholzbach data set used here provides 32 years of continuous and high-quality observations, which include a soil moisture profile and unique observations of storage changes and evapotranspiration measured by a weighing lysimeter. Streamflow recession at the daily time scale shows a marked seasonal cycle and is fastest in summer due to the higher evapotranspiration losses. The discharge sensitivity function linking storage and discharge is nonlinear and slightly downward-curving in double-logarithmic space. Small diurnal discharge fluctuations prevent application of the approach at the hourly resolution for low-discharge conditions. The vast majority of runoff peaks can be explained by storage variations, except peaks that follow events with extreme precipitation intensity (30–40 mm h−1). Storage change dynamics inferred from streamflow variations compare well to observations from the lysimeter and simulations with a land surface model but become very uncertain under dry conditions. Good results can be obtained when the discharge sensitivity function is calibrated on a monthly time scale to avoid the effect of the diurnal discharge fluctuations. Our analysis highlights the importance of evapotranspiration for catchment hydrology, as it is the main driver of changes in streamflow at Rietholzbach for 21% of the time.