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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-3465</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Spectral versus co-spectral correction of eddy-covariance fluxes: a multi-site assessment across the ICOS network</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Faurès</surname>
<given-names>Ariane</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fratini</surname>
<given-names>Gerardo</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nicolini</surname>
<given-names>Giacomo</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9800-3351</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Papale</surname>
<given-names>Dario</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5170-8648</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sabbatini</surname>
<given-names>Simone</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2950-8911</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Heinesch</surname>
<given-names>Bernard</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7594-6341</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>University of Liège - Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>LI-COR Biosciences Inc., Lincoln, Nebraska 68504, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change - IAFES Division</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>University of Tuscia, Department for innovation in biological, agro-food and forest systems (DIBAF)</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>07</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>49</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Ariane Faurès et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3465/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3465/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3465/egusphere-2026-3465.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3465/egusphere-2026-3465.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Accurate correction of high-frequency attenuation remains a critical challenge in eddy-covariance measurements of turbulent gas fluxes. Experimental correction approaches based on either power spectra or co-spectra are widely used, yet their relative behaviour and implications for flux estimates have not been systematically assessed across sites and atmospheric conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This study presents a multi-site comparison of these two approaches using one year of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; and H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O flux data from 38 ecosystem stations of the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) equipped with a standardized enclosed-path gas analyser setup. To support reproducibility and facilitate future methodological intercomparisons, we additionally provide an open-source and configurable software tool implementing both correction approaches.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, the ICOS setup exhibited limited high-frequency attenuation, with correction factors generally below 1.2 for CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; and occasionally approaching 2 for H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O under humid conditions. For CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;, differences between methods remained small after standard turbulence filtering, with cumulative flux differences typically below 2 %. In contrast, H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O corrections showed larger discrepancies, frequently reaching 5&amp;ndash;10 % on cumulative fluxes. The largest differences occurred under stable atmospheric conditions, at low measurement heights, and under strong attenuation. Results indicate that CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; attenuation is dominated by sensor-separation effects, whereas H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O attenuation is primarily controlled by adsorption&amp;ndash;desorption processes within the sampling system.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The comparison highlights methodological limitations of both approaches. Both methods rely on assumptions regarding spectral similarity, but departures from these assumptions were found to affect gas spectra much more strongly than co-spectra, particularly for H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O under humid conditions. In addition, spectral corrections were frequently affected by high-frequency noise and required dedicated denoising procedures, while sensor-separation effects had to be introduced through analytical formulations. Overall, the co-spectral approach provided more robust and physically consistent results across sites and atmospheric conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A comparison with fluxes produced by the ICOS Ecosystem Thematic Centre revealed systematic differences that were often larger than those observed between the spectral and co-spectral approaches themselves, especially for H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of setup standardisation across the ICOS network while identifying high-frequency attenuation correction as a remaining source of uncertainty. They also highlight the need for a broader reassessment of this processing step within the ICOS flux-processing pipeline.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Service Public de Wallonie</funding-source>
<award-id>1217769</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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