What Controls the Net Forest-Atmosphere Exchange of Carbonyl Sulfide? Results from 2 Years of Eddy Flux Measurements and SiB Model Simulations

Abstract:

Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) is currently a focus of ground-, aircraft-, and satellite-based measurements as well as of model development, owing mainly to its potential use as a large-scale proxy for gross primary production (GPP). OCS is taken up by leaves and either taken up or emitted by soils, depending on the circumstances. Because OCS is destroyed by the enzyme carbonic anhydrase within the leaf rather than by any light-dependent reaction, the leaf uptake is expected to be related to the conductance of the diffusive pathway into the leaf (stomata + mesophyll + leaf boundary air layer) rather than to GPP directly, though GPP and the diffusive conductance are often strongly correlated.

Here we use 2 years of eddy covariance measurements of the net ecosystem-atmosphere exchange of OCS, along with measurements of the vertical profile of OCS within the forest, to investigate the controls on ecosystem-scale OCS uptake and emission. We compare the OCS measurements, and simultaneous CO₂ isotope flux and profile measurements, to predictions from the Simple Biosphere (SiB) model, which has been used to simulate OCS and ¹³CO₂ fluxes for both vegetation and soils but has not yet been systematically tested against these relatively novel tracers. We thereby address the key question: How can measurements of the net ecosystem-atmosphere OCS exchange contribute to empirical quantification of stomatal conductance and GPP and to improving process-based ecosystem models?