On October 30, 2018, the first journal paper affiliated to the CAS-CSI Joint Laboratory of Research and Development for Monitoring Forest Fluxes of Trace Gas and Isotope Elements (CAS-CSI Joint Lab or ‘Ker Joint Lab’ for short) was published in the journal Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. This paper presents a three-dimensional wind and sonic temperature recovery method for an Open-Path Eddy-Covariance System (IRGASON, Integrated CO2/H2O Open-Path Gas Analyzer and 3D Sonic Anemometer, Campbell Scientific Inc.).
The method shows a good application potential and was tested in a case study. In that case, an IRGASON's 3D Anemometer probe was geometry deformed during transportation, and the data collected could not be output correctly. The authors of this paper compared the methods of transducer-shadow correction and crosswind correction, developed a post-processing algorithm to recover the monitoring data.
The Ker Joint Lab was in preparation to be established in May 2016 and its plaque was unveiled in May 2018. It aims to promote the application of trace gas and isotope elements monitoring techniques in forest ecosystems, and to explore trace gas monitoring theories (models), techniques and methods in complex mountainous terrains. Professor ZHU Jiaojun of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Professor ZHOU Xinhua, an application scientist of Campbell Scientific Instruments, served as the lab’s directors.
The Ker Joint Lab has conducted research at the Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Research Station of the CAS (or ‘Qingyuan Station’ for short) where several towers for forest research were equipped with the profile and (open- and closed-path) eddy flux systems, soil heat flux sensors, radiation monitoring sensors and other advanced sensors and instruments. This research platform has already been put into use to collect long-term monitoring data for secondary forest management and environmental impact research, and to conduct research on forest energy cycle and observational technologies. The studies that have been carried out include: high-frequency air temperature calculation in open/closed-path eddy systems, the effects of transducer-shadow correction of three-dimensional anemometer on energy flux observation, turbulence spectrum over complex forest terrain, the relationship between CO2/H2O profile measurements and forest vertical structure, and the data quality assessment of the open/closed-path eddy system.
