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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment » Soil, Water & Air Resources Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #270711
Title: Calculating the detection limits of chamber-based greenhouse gas flux measurements

Author
item Parkin, Timothy
item Venterea, Rodney - Rod
item HARGREAVES, SARAH - Iowa State University

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/19/2011
Publication Date: 10/19/2011
Citation: Parkin, T.B., Venterea, R.T., Hargreaves, S.K. 2011. Calculating the detection limits of chamber-based greenhouse gas flux measurements. American Society of Agronomy Annual Meetings [abstracts]. ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting. Oct. 16-19, 2011, San Antonio, TX. CD-ROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Chamber-based measurement of greenhouse gas emissions from soil is a common technique. However, when changes in chamber headspace gas concentrations are small over time, determination of the flux can be problematic. Several factors contribute to the reliability of measured fluxes, including: sampling/analytical precision, chamber deployment time, number of time point samples collected over the course of the chamber deployment, and the methodology used to compute the flux. This study used Monte Carlo simulation to investigate all of these factors on the Type I error rate of chamber flux measurements. The sampling/analytical precisions (coefficients of variation) investigated ranged from 0.01 to 0.12. Three chamber deployment times (0.5 h, 0.75 h, and 1.0 h) and two sampling intensities (3 time points or 4 time points) were tested. The flux calculation methods used were: i) linear regression, ii) a quadratic method whereby a 2nd degree polynomial was fit to the data and the first derivative was evaluated at time zero, and iii) a method developed by Hutchinson and Mosier that accounts for chamber impacts on gas diffusion. The quantitative relationships between these variables and Type I error rate, enabled the determination of the minimum detection limits of measured soil gas fluxes.