Airborne Flux Measurements of BVOCs above Californian Oak Forests: Experimental Investigation of Surface and Entrainment Fluxes, OH Densities, and Damköhler Numbers

Abstract

Airborne flux measurements of isoprene were performed over the Californian oak belts surrounding the Central Valley. The authors demonstrate for the first time 1) the feasibility of airborne eddy covariance measurements of reactive biogenic volatile organic compounds; 2) the effect of chemistry on the vertical transport of reactive species, such as isoprene; and 3) the applicability of wavelet analysis to estimate regional fluxes of biogenic volatile organic compounds. These flux measurements demonstrate that instrumentation operating at slower response times (e.g., 1–5 s) can still be used to determine eddy covariance fluxes in the mixed layer above land, where typical length scales of 0.5–3km were observed. Flux divergence of isoprene measured in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) is indicative of OH densities in the range of 4–7 3 106 molecules per cubic centimeter and allows extrapolation of airborne fluxes to the surface with Damk€ohler numbers (ratio between the mixing time scale and the chemical time scale) in the range of 0.3–0.9. Most of the isoprene is oxidized in the PBL with entrainment fluxes of about 10% compared to the corresponding surface fluxes. Entrainment velocities of 1–10 cm s21 were measured. The authors present implications for parameterizing PBL schemes of reactive species in regional and global models.