Importance of the Webb, Pearman, and Leuning (WPL) correction for the measurement of small CO 2 fluxes

• Published in: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
• Main Authors: K. Jentzsch, J. Boike, T. Foken
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2021
• Subjects: Environmental engineering; TA170-171; Earthwork. Foundations; TA715-787; Arctic; Webb
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7291-2021; https://doaj.org/article/86b0c568e7244de090aab8a4e3bb3c86

The WPL (Webb, Pearman, and Leuning) correction is fully accepted to correct trace gas fluxes like CO 2 for density fluctuations due to water vapour and temperature fluctuations for open-path gas analysers. It is known that this additive correction can be on the order of magnitude of the actual flux. However, this is hardly ever included in the analysis of data quality. An example from the Arctic shows the problems, because the size of the correction is a multiple of the actual flux. As a general result, we examined and tabulated the magnitude of the WPL correction for carbon dioxide flux as a function of sensible and latent heat flux. Furthermore, we propose a parameter to better estimate possible deficits in data quality and recommend integrating the quality flag derived with this parameter into the general study of small carbon dioxide fluxes.