<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>A unique, highly time-resolved, and synchronous three-year dataset of near-surface atmospheric radon-222 as well as soil heat flux and air temperature measurements at two sites (rural and urban) in Central Poland are investigated. The recognition of temporal variability of Rn-222 and selected meteorological variables in the urban and rural areas served to create two statistical models for estimation of this radionuclide concentration at 2 m a.g.l. The description of the relationships between the variables for individual months was established on the basis of an exponential function and an exponential function with time derivative of predictor to account for the hysteresis issue. The model with time derivative provided better results. The weakest fitting of modelled data to empirical ones is observed for the winter months. During subsequent seasons, air temperature as well as QG-driven (soil heat flux) models exhibited very high agreement with the empirical data (MBE, RMSE, MAE, and ‘index of agreement’ by Willmott were used to evaluate the models). A restriction in the use of QG for Rn-222 concentration was observed only in winter in the case of snow cover occurrence, which reduces the daily QG variability.</p></abstract>

A unique, highly time-resolved, and synchronous three-year dataset of near-surface atmospheric radon-222 as well as soil heat flux and air temperature measurements at two sites (rural and urban) in Central Poland are investigated. The recognition of temporal variability of Rn-222 and selected meteorological variables in the urban and rural areas served to create two statistical models for estimation of this radionuclide concentration at 2 m a.g.l. The description of the relationships between the variables for individual months was established on the basis of an exponential function and an exponential function with time derivative of predictor to account for the hysteresis issue. The model with time derivative provided better results. The weakest fitting of modelled data to empirical ones is observed for the winter months. During subsequent seasons, air temperature as well as QG-driven (soil heat flux) models exhibited very high agreement with the empirical data (MBE, RMSE, MAE, and ‘index of agreement’ by Willmott were used to evaluate the models). A restriction in the use of QG for Rn-222 concentration was observed only in winter in the case of snow cover occurrence, which reduces the daily QG variability.

Soil heat flux and air temperature as factors of radon (Rn-222) concentration in the near-ground air layer

Nukleonika

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

A unique, highly time-resolved, and synchronous three-year dataset of near-surface atmospheric radon-222 as well as soil heat flux and air temperature...

Soil heat flux and air temperature as factors of radon (Rn-222) concentration in the near-ground air layer

Published Online: Sep 10, 2016

Page range: 231 - 237

Received: Jan 13, 2016

Accepted: Mar 18, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nuka-2016-0039

Keywords
air temperature, Central Poland, exponential function, Rn-222, soil heat flux

© 2016 Agnieszka Podstawczyńska et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Soil heat flux and air temperature as factors of radon (Rn-222) concentration in the near-ground air layer

Published Online: Sep 10, 2016

Page range: 231 - 237

Received: Jan 13, 2016

Accepted: Mar 18, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nuka-2016-0039

Keywordsair temperature, Central Poland, exponential function, Rn-222, soil heat flux

© 2016 Agnieszka Podstawczyńska et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
air temperature, Central Poland, exponential function, Rn-222, soil heat flux