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Upland forest soils affect the atmospheric methane (CH4) balance, not only through the soil sink but also due to episodic high emissions in wet conditions. We measured methane fluxes and found that during a wet fall the forest soil turned from a CH4 sink into a large source for several months, while the CH4 emissions from a nearby wetland did not increase. When upscaled to the whole catchment area the contribution of forests amounted to 60% of the annual CH4 emission from the wetlands, while in a normal year the forest soil consumes 10% of the wetland emission. The period of high upland soil emission was also captured by the nearby atmospheric concentration measurement station. Since the land cover within the catchment is representative of larger regions, our findings imply that upland forests in the boreal zone constitute an important part in the global CH4 cycle not previously accounted for.

[1] Landfills are one of the largest sources of methane to the atmosphere, yet their emissions are seldom measured. This results in high uncertainties in national emission estimates. We developed a Flame Ionization Detector-based micrometeorological measurement system and tested it at a large municipal landfill in Finland. The technical characteristics of the system allowed use of the eddy covariance method, enabling emission monitoring at a much lower cost than employing a Tunable Diode Laser instrument, which we used as a reference. Combining methane and carbon dioxide flux measurements we were able to estimate the methane generation rate, gas collection efficiency and oxidation rate in the landfill surface layer. We showed that the oxidation fraction may differ significantly from the default value used in the IPCC emission modelling, and that high emission rates were observed in the active deposition areas of the landfill.