Carbon Exchange between the Atmosphere and a Subtropical Evergreen Mountain Forest in Taiwan

Abstract

Tropical, temperate, and boreal forests are the subject of various eddy covariance studies, but less is known about the subtropical region. As there are large areas of subtropical forests in the East Asian monsoon region with possibly high carbon uptake, we used three years (2011–2013) of eddy covariance data to estimate the carbon balance of a subtropical mountain forest in Taiwan. Two techniques of flux partitioning are applied to evaluate ecosystem respiration, thoroughly evaluate the validity of the estimated fluxes, and arrive at an estimate of the yearly net ecosystem exchange (NEE). We found that advection is a strong player at our site. Further, when used alone, the nighttime flux correction with the so-called u∗ method (u∗ = friction velocity) cannot avoid underestimating the nighttime respiration. By using a two-technique method employing both nighttime and daytime parameterizations for flux corrections, we arrive at an estimate of the three-year mean NEE of −561 (±standard deviation 114) g·C·m−2·yr−1. The corrected flux estimate represents a rather large uptake of CO2 for this mountain cloud forest, but the value is in good agreement with the few existing comparable estimates for other subtropical forests.