A mass balance method for non-intrusive measurements of surface-air trace gas exchange

A mass balance method is described for calculating gas production from a surface or volume source in a small test plot from measurements of differences in the horizontal fluxes of the gas across upwind and downwind boundaries. It employs a square plot, 24 m×24 m, with measurements of gas concentration at four heights (up to 3.5 m) along each of the four boundaries. Gas concentrations are multiplied by the appropriate vector winds to yield the horizontal fluxes at each height on each boundary. The difference between these fluxes integrated over downwind and upwind boundaries represents production. Illustrations of the method, which involve exchanges of methane and carbon dioxide, are drawn from experiments with landfills, pastures and grazing animals. Tests included calculation of recovery rates from known gas releases and comparisons with a conventional micrometeorological approach and a backward dispersion model. The method performed satisfactorily in all cases. Its sensitivity for measuring exchanges of CO2, CH4 and N2O in various scenarios was examined. As employed by us, the mass balance method can suffer from errors arising from the large number of gas analyses required for a flux determination, and becomes unreliable when there are light winds and variable wind directions. On the other hand, it is non-disturbing, has a simple theoretical basis, is independent of atmospheric stability or the shape of the wind profile, and is appropriate for flux measurement in situations where conventional micrometeorological methods can not be used, e.g. for small plots, elevated point sources, and heterogeneous surface sources.