Validation and Application of Cavity-Enhanced, Near-Infrared Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometry for Measurements of Methane Carbon Isotopes at Ambient Concentrations.

Autor: Mortazavi, Behzad1,2 bmortazavi@ua.edu, Wilson, Benjamin J.1,2, Feng Dong3, Gupta, Manish3, Doug Baer3
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environmental Science & Technology. 10/15/2013, Vol. 47 Issue 20, p11676-11684. 9p.
Abstrakt: Methane is an effective greenhouse gas but has a short residence time in the atmosphere, and therefore, reductions in emissions can alleviate its greenhouse gas warming effect within a decadal time frame. Continuous and high temporal resolution measurements of methane concentrations and carbon isotopic ratios (δ13CH4) can inform on mechanisms of formation, provide constraints on emissions sources, and guide future mitigation efforts. We describe the development, validation, and deployment of a cavity-enhanced, near-infrared tunable diode laser absorption spectrometry system capable of quantifying δ13CH4 at ambient methane concentrations. Laboratory validation and testing show that the instrument is capable of operating over a wide dynamic range of methane concentration and provides a measurement precision for δ13CH4 of better than ±0.5‰ (1σ) over 1000 s of data averaging at ambient methane concentrations. The analyzer is accurate to better than ±0.5‰, as demonstrated by measurements of characterized methane/air samples with minimal dependence (<1‰) of measured carbon isotope ratio on methane concentration. Deployment of the instrument at a marsh over multiple days demonstrated how methane fluxes varied by an order of magnitude over 2 day deployment periods, and showed a 17 ‰ variability in δ13CH4 of the emitted methane during the growing season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: GreenFILE