Soil Flux Chamber Measurements with Five Species CRDS and New Realtime Chamber Flux Processor

Continuous soil flux chamber measurements remains a key tool for determining production and sequestration of direct and indirect greenhouse gases. The Picarro G2508 Cavity Ring-down Spectrometer has radically simplified soil flux studies by providing simultaneous measurements of five gases: CO2, CH4, N2O, NH3, and H2O, and by lending itself to field deployment. Successful use of the Picarro G2508 for continuous soil flux measurements in a variety of ecosystem types has already been demonstrated.

Most recently, Picarro is developing a real-time processing software to simplify chamber measurements of soil flux with the G2508 CRDS. The new Realtime Chamber Flux Processor is designed to work with all chamber types and sizes, and provides real-time flux values of N2O, CO2 & CH4.

The software features include chamber sequence table, flexible data tagging feature, ceiling concentration measurement shut-off parameter, user-defined run-time interval, temperature/pressure input for field monitoring and volumetric conversion, and manual flux measurement start/stop override.

Realtime Chamber Flux Processor GUI interface is presented, and results from a variety of sampling designs are demonstrated to emphasize program flexibility and field capability.