Measurements of greenhouse gases and related tracers at Bialystok tall tower station in Poland

Abstract

Quasi-continuous, in-situ measurements of atmospheric CO2, O-2/N-2, CH4, CO, N2O, and SF6 have been performed since August 2005 at the tall tower station near Bialystok, in Eastern Poland, from five heights up to 300 m. Besides the in-situ measurements, flask samples are filled approximately weekly and measured at Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry for the same species and, in addition, for H-2, Ar/N-2 and the stable isotopes C-13 and O-18 in CO2. The in-situ measurement system was built based on commercially available analysers: a LiCor 7000 for CO2, a Sable Systems " Oxzilla" FC-2 for O-2, and an Agilent 6890 gas chromatograph for CH4, CO, N2O and SF6. The system was optimized to run continuously with very little maintenance and to fulfill the precision requirements of the CHIOTTO project. The O-2/N-2 measurements in particular required special attention in terms of technical setup and quality assurance. The evaluation of the performance after more than three years of operation gave overall satisfactory results, proving that this setup is suitable for long term remote operation with little maintenance. The precision achieved for all species is within or close to the project requirements. The comparison between the in-situ and flask sample results, used to verify the accuracy of the in-situ measurements, showed no significant difference for CO2, O-2/N-2, CH4 and N2O, and a very small difference for SF6. The same comparison however revealed a statistically significant difference for CO, of about 6.5 ppb, for which the cause could not be fully explained