The Taihu Eddy Flux Network: An Observational Program on Energy, Water, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes of a Large Freshwater Lake

Lakes are an important component of the climate system. They provide moisture for precipitation, buffer temperature variations, and contribute to regional atmospheric carbon budgets. This article describes an eddy covariance (EC) mesonet on Lake Taihu, a large (area 2400 km2) and shallow (depth 2 m) lake situated in the heavily populated Yangtze River Delta, China. The mesonet consists of five lake sites, representing different biological attributes and wind–wave patterns, and a land site near the lake shore. Common to all the sites are standard EC instruments for measurement of the momentum, sensible heat, water vapor, and CO2 flux. One site is also equipped with laser-based analyzers for precise measurement of the CO2, CH4, and H2O mixing ratios and their isotopic compositions. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first lake eddy flux mesonet. Early results reveal evidence of biological and pollution controls on the surface–air fluxes of energy, momentum, and greenhouse gases across the lake. The data will be used to address five science questions: 1) Are lake–air parameterizations established for deep lakes applicable to shallow lakes? 2) Why are lake–land breeze circulations less prevalent in the Taihu lake basin than in lake basins in northern latitudes? 3) How do algal blooms alter the lake–atmosphere interactions? 4) Is this eutrophic lake a source or sink of atmospheric CO2? 5) Does the decay of algal and macrophyte biomass contribute significant amounts of CH4 to the atmosphere?