Characterisation of analytical uncertainty in chamber soil flux measurements

Nicholas Cowan¹ , Peter Levy¹ , Maddalena Tigli¹ , Galina Toteva¹ , Julia Drewer¹

¹ UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bush Estate, Midlothian, UK, EH26 0QB

Corresponding Author: Nicholas Cowan ( nicwan11@ceh.ac.uk )

DOI : 10.1111/ejss.70104

Keywords : greenhouse gas, infrared analyser, gas chromatography, soil flux, error analysis

Abstract

Flux chamber methodologies are used at the global scale to measure exchange of trace gases between terrestrial surfaces (soils) and the atmosphere. These methods evolved as a simplistic necessity to measure gas fluxes from a time when gas analysers were limited in capability and costs were prohibitively high, since which thousands of studies have deployed a wide variety of chamber methodologies to build vast datasets of soil fluxes. However, analytical limitations of the methods are often overlooked and are poorly understood by the flux community, leading to confusion and misreporting of observations in some cases. In recent years, the number of commercial suppliers of gas analysers claiming to be capable of measuring trace gas fluxes from chambers has drastically increased, with a myriad of analysers (and low-cost sensors) now on offer with a wide variety of capabilities. While chamber designs and the capabilities of analysers vary by orders of magnitude, the rudimentary analytical uncertainties of individual flux measurements can still be standardised for direct comparison of methods. This study aims to serve as a guide to calculate analytical uncertainty of chamber flux methodologies in a standardised way for direct comparisons. We provide comparisons of a variety of chamber measurement methodologies (closed static and dynamic chamber methods) to highlight the impact of analytical noise, chamber size, enclosure time and number of gas samples. With the associated tools, researchers, commercial suppliers and other stakeholders in the flux community can easily estimate the limitations of a particular methodology to establish and tailor the suitability of particular chambers and instruments to experimental requirements.

Cite as:

Cowan, N., Levy, P., Tigli, M., Toteva, G. and Drewer, J. (2025), Characterisation of Analytical Uncertainty in Chamber Soil Flux Measurements. Eur J Soil Sci, 76: e70104. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70104

Contact us

nicwan11@ceh.ac.uk

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