Seasonal trends of biogenic terpene emissions

• Full year study on biogenic volatile organic compounds emissions.
• Description of seasonal changes of basal emission rates.
• Investigation of seasonal behavior of temperature response.
• Sensitivity analysis for modeling of biogenic volatile organic compound emissions.

Biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions from six coniferous tree species, i.e. Pinus ponderosa (Ponderosa Pine), Picea pungens (Blue Spruce), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Rocky Mountain Douglas Fir) and Pinus longaeva (Bristlecone Pine), as well as from two deciduous species, Quercus gambelii (Gamble Oak) and Betula occidentalis (Western River Birch) were studied over a full annual growing cycle. Monoterpene (MT) and sesquiterpene (SQT) emissions rates were quantified in a total of 1236 individual branch enclosure samples. MT dominated coniferous emissions, producing greater than 95% of BVOC emissions. MT and SQT demonstrated short-term emission dependence with temperature. Two oxygenated MT, 1,8-cineol and piperitone, were both light and temperature dependent. Basal emission rates (BER, normalized to 1000 μmol m−2 s−1 and 30 °C) were generally higher in spring and summer than in winter; MT seasonal BER from the coniferous trees maximized between 1.5 and 6.0 μg g−1 h−1, while seasonal lows were near 0.1 μg g−1 h−1. The fractional contribution of individual MT to total emissions was found to fluctuate with season. SQT BER measured from the coniferous trees ranged from <0.01 to 0.15 μg g−1 h−1. BER of up to 1.2 μg g−1 h−1 of the SQT germacrene B were found from Q. gambelii, peaking in late summer. The β-factor, used to define temperature dependence in emissions modeling, was not found to exhibit discernible growth season trends. A seasonal correction factor proposed by others in previous work to account for a sinusoidal shaped emission pattern was applied to the data. Varying levels of agreement were found between the data and model results for the different plant species seasonal data sets using this correction. Consequently, the analyses on this extensive data set suggest that it is not feasible to apply a universal seasonal correction factor across different vegetation species. A modeling exercise comparing two case scenarios, (1) without and (2) with consideration of the seasonal changes in emission factors illustrated large deviations when emission factors are applied for other seasons than those in which they were experimentally determined.