Measurement of CO2 exchange between Boreal forest and the atmosphere

The question of how important the Boreal forest is in determining the strength of the global carbon sink was one of the reasons for the Boreal Ecosystem–Atmosphere Study of the mid-1990s. Landsberg and Gower provided a good description of climate, soils and vegetation of the Boreal forest biome and Baldocchi et al. discussed climate and vegetation controls on energy exchanges with the atmosphere. This chapter summarizes recent work using eddy covariance to measure the net exchange of CO₂ between the atmosphere and the Boreal forest. It reviews progress in understanding controls on the net ecosystem productivity (NEP). The chapter reports on recent studies aimed at determining effects of disturbance and stand age on NEP. It also reviews methods to upscale forest stand CO₂ fluxes to regional scale. The eddy covariance method of measuring the exchange of CO₂ between the atmosphere and the Earth's surface is based on measurement of the fluctuations of vertical wind speed.