Can sulfate fluxes in forest canopy throughfall be used to estimate atmospheric sulfur deposition

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5269552

Lindberg, S E; Garten, Jr, C T ^[1]; Cape, J N ^[2]; Ivens, W ^[3]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
2. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
3. Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht (Netherlands)

The flux of sulfate is forest throughfall and stemflow (the sum of which is designated here as TF) may be an indicator of the atmospheric deposition of S, particularly if foliar leaching of internal plant S is small relative to washoff of deposition. Extensive data from 13 forests indicate that annual sulfate fluxes in TF and in atmospheric deposition are very similar, and recent studies with {sup 35}S tracers indicate that leaching is only a few percent of total TF. However, some short-term deposition/TF comparisons show large differences, and there remain questions about interpretation of tracer results. Considering the data, we conclude that TF may be used under some conditions to estimate deposition within acceptable uncertainty limits, but that some assumptions need further testing. If TF does reflect deposition, these data suggest that commonly used methods and models seriously underestimate total S deposition at some sites. 39 refs. ,4 figs., 1 tab.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; EPRI; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 5269552
• Report Number(s): CONF-9107104-15; ON: DE92000044
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540120* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
540220 -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
550200 -- Biochemistry
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CANOPIES
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
DEPOSITION
DISSOLUTION
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
FORESTS
INFORMATION NEEDS
ISOTOPE APPLICATIONS
ISOTOPES
LEACHING
LIGHT NUCLEI
MASS TRANSFER
MATHEMATICS
MEASURING METHODS
NONMETALS
NUCLEI
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
QUANTITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
RADIOISOTOPES
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SIMULATION
STATISTICS
SULFATES
SULFUR
SULFUR 35
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR CYCLE
SULFUR ISOTOPES
THROUGHFALL
TRACER TECHNIQUES
VARIATIONS