从农业土壤使用静态钱伯斯温室气体流量测量

Understanding the contributions of both human activities and natural systems to radiative properties of the atmosphere is an area of critical importance as we strive to mitigate anthropogenic contributions to the greenhouse effect. In addition to carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and methane (CH₄) are also potent GHGs, accounting for an estimated 7% and 19% of global warming, respectively, with the majority of emissions coming from landscape sources^1,2. These range from managed systems such as agricultural fields, rice paddies, and landfills, to natural systems such as forest floors, wetlands, and termite mounds. Accurate measurement, supporting well-informed modeling of such landscape-based emissions is critical in order to understand the drivers of climate change as well as to identify mitigation opportunities.

A variety of greenhouse gas measurement strategies exist, each with their own strengths and weaknesses^2-5. Mass balance techniques rely on wind-based dispersion of gases and are suited to measurement of flux from small, well-defined sources such as landfills and animal paddocks. Micrometeorological approaches such as eddy covariance are based on real-time direct measurement of vertical gas flux, and can provide direct measurements over large areas. However, homogeneity in source topography is an implicit assumption (in that measurements yield a mean for the area under study), and costly infrastructure can limit deployment possibilities. Finally, chamber-based methods focus on change in gas concentration at the soil surface by sampling from a restricted above ground headspace. They allow measurements to be obtained from small areas and numerous treatments, but are subject to high coefficients of variation due to spatial variation in soil gas flux.

Here we discuss the most prevalent and easily implemented form of chamber-based measurement, utilizing the type of closed chambers without air flow-through commonly referred to as “static” or “non-steady-state non-flow-through” chambers. In this approach, gas emissions from the soil surface are trapped within a vented chamber, and rates of flux are determined by measuring the change in gas concentration over time within the chamber headspace. The static chamber technique has been widely deployed across both managed and natural landscapes and underpins the bulk of data reporting soil-based flux of greenhouse gases, particularly N₂O^6,7. It is ideally suited to the study of small experimental plots, diverse sites over variable terrain, or in other situations where multiple distinct locations must be studied without significant infrastructure investments. Typical experimental uses might include the exploration of alternative landscape management practices and their impact on soil-based CO₂, N₂O, and/or CH₄ emissions, examination of landscape-based flux dynamics under artificially induced climate change scenarios such as warming and rainfall exclusion/supplementation, or the descriptive study of natural and agricultural ecosystems and subsystems.

As a critical tool in GHG measurement and flux estimation, the static chamber method has been thoroughly evaluated, and significant efforts have been made towards standardization of techniques and harmonization of data reporting^4,6,8,9. Of particular note are the detailed reviews and guidelines produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service’s Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet)⁸ and by the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA)⁹. Such guidelines provide an invaluable resource and platform for coordination, as ultimately the interoperability of data from a myriad of studies is critical for scaling up local findings to global modeling, and for translating research results into viable mitigation strategies.

GRACEnet, GRA, and other reviews also highlight the fact that specific techniques in static chamber-based greenhouse gas flux measurement are extremely diverse, with significant methodological variations possible at nearly every step of the way, including chamber design, temporal and spatial deployment, sampling volumes, sample analysis, and flux calculations. The method described here presents one possible variant, while showcasing best practices and highlighting critical considerations for the generation of high quality, broadly transferrable data. It is intended to provide an accessible overview of this standardized procedure, and a platform from which to explore further nuances and variations described in the literature.