Basic and extensible post-processing of eddy covariance flux data with REddyProc

Wutzler, Thomas; Lucas-Moffat, Antje; Migliavacca, Mirco; Knauer, Jürgen; Sickel, Kerstin; Šigut, Ladislav; Menzer, Olaf; Reichstein, Markus

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5015-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5015-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5015-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 16

Research article

|

23 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 23 Aug 2018

Basic and extensible post-processing of eddy covariance flux data with REddyProc

Thomas Wutzler, Antje Lucas-Moffat, Mirco Migliavacca, Jürgen Knauer, Kerstin Sickel, Ladislav Šigut, Olaf Menzer, and Markus Reichstein

Download

Final revised paper (published on 23 Aug 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 12 Feb 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'great description of computational methods, should submit to different journal', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Mar 2018
- SC1: 'Biogeosciences journal to target the audience', Thomas Wutzler, 07 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Response RC1', Thomas Wutzler, 04 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Review of Wutzler et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to RC2', Thomas Wutzler, 04 Apr 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (06 Apr 2018) by Paul Stoy

AR by Thomas Wutzler on behalf of the Authors (11 May 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 May 2018) by Paul Stoy

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (17 Jul 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Wutzler and others demonstrate the REddyProc package. I feel that the manuscript will be an important contribution to the flux community given the number of users who will likely use the package. That being said, there are a number of aspects of the manuscript that I felt could be improved:

Abstract was a bit qualitative, numbers would help. For example, how much lower and higher are the uncertainty estimates noted toward the end of the abstract?

‘allowed a boost in’ is too wordy.

‘and temperature’ instead of ‘or temperature’ on line 7 page 2.

Figure 1 already includes a thumbprint plot for RE that seems a bit implausible. Is the red/orange horizontal line through the middle of the plot really true?

The legend of Fig. 2 is a bit elusive but can be figured out with careful study. Clarifying it would help.

P 5 and elsewhere: please use ‘van Gorsel’. Regarding section 2.1, will improved approaches following van Gorsel et al. (2007), sigma_w-based approaches (Jocher et al., see earlier work by Acevedo: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192308001962), estimates of drainage (see Hayek et al., 10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.12.186), atmospheric stability approaches (Novick et al., 2004) or other non-ustar approaches be implemented? It’s been my feeling that a large part of the flux community has moved beyond ustar.

2.1.1: I’ve long-wondered what is the best threshold for ‘nighttime’ especially given the characteristic decline in turbulence with the collapse of the daytime boundary layer may occur earlier. Is there a justification for Rg < 10 W m-2? (see also the last line of page 8).

Regarding 2.2.2, often alternate micrometeorological information is available. Is it possible in REddyProc to add multiple micrometeorological measurements of the same variable?

On page 10, BGC16 was used and defined before. Please define it at first instance.

‘Papale C-implementation’ on p. 13, just use DP06. A quick re-read for minor issues like this would improve the paper. Also, what is a ‘big scatter’ on page 13?

Regarding the LRC fits, is a least squares cost function applied or least absolute deviation to avoid the influence of outliers (see Richardson 2005/6 papers). Some discussion of the cost function is necessary in my opinion.

Hide

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (19 Jul 2018) by Paul Stoy

AR by Thomas Wutzler on behalf of the Authors (06 Aug 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Aug 2018) by Paul Stoy

AR by Thomas Wutzler on behalf of the Authors (08 Aug 2018) Author's response Manuscript

Download

Article (5429 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

Net fluxes of carbon dioxide at the ecosystem level measured by eddy covariance are a main source for understanding biosphere–atmosphere interactions. However, there is a need for more usable and extensible tools for post-processing steps of the half-hourly flux data. Therefore, we developed the REddyProc package, providing data filtering, gap filling, and flux partitioning. The extensible functions are compatible with state-of-the-art tools but allow easier integration in extended analysis.