Comments Reviewer 1

1. L32: In this comment, Reviewer 1 suggests we include more detailles information on CH₄ emissions.

Our response: We appreciate this observation and will enhance this section by providing additional detailed information about CH₄ emissions from peatlands, and we will include relevant references to support it.

__________

1. Around L313-316, L319-322: Reviewer 1 has noted that these sections must clarify the gas exchange under these specific configurations (i.e. with a plastic cover that is not totally transparent and in presence of a dark screen).

Our response: Thank you for pointing that out. We agree that a more detailed description of the gas exchanges under these specific conditions is necessary. As such, we will provide a more detailed discussion of the gas exchange dynamics  when a partially transparent plastic sheet and a dark screen are used. This clarification will address the reviewer's concern and enhance the overall understanding of our study.

__________

1. Around L359-360: Reviewer 1´s note implies the necessity to compare the skirt-chamber and standard static chamber in our concluding remark.

Our response: We agree with this comment, and we will incorporate a detailed comparison between the skirt-chamber and standard static chambers in our concluding statement, to enhance the significance of our study.

__________

1. On the line 138 it is stated that “The peatland was not flooded but the water table was close to the surface, i.e. 0.1−0.6 m.” Did you measure the water table at/next to each measurement point or how was the water table measured? The studied peatland seems not to be relatively wet as the highest water table measured is around -10 cm. However, the campaign was conducted at the end of the summer, which I assume can be drier compared to spring and autumn. Is there a lot of seasonal variation in the water table? I am wondering about this because one of the greatest advantages of the skirt-chamber is that it can be used without collars in remote areas. However, there can be both high spatial and temporal variation in water tables in peatlands. It this study, skirt-chamber was tested only on non-flooded conditions. How do you think the skirt-chamber would perform on wet surfaces and would it affect the measurements somehow? 

Our response: This comment is important, as it highlights the relevance of the water table  as a dominant factor in the greenhouse gas dynamics in peatlands. In our study, we manually measured the water table using a groundwater monitoring well, which consisted of a plastic 2-inch perforated tube. This tube was strategically installed two days before our measurements, in the proximity of our measurement locations. The relative height of each measurement point to the water table was determined using a water level hose.

We tested the skirt-chamber in March 2022, during which precipitations are usually higher than the other months of the year. The peatland, where our research was conducted, was equipped with eight piezometer probes, installed since April 2022. These probes showed moderate variation and, so far, we have not found flooded areas.  Regarding the potential of the skirt-chamber to be used on flooded area, we did not test that approach, but we do not anticipate any potential issues.

To attend these comments, we will include three amendments to the manuscript:

1. We will incorporate a description of the methodology used for the water table measurements.
2. We will include a brief discussion on the possible application of the skirt-chamber in flooded areas.
3. We will include a climatogram in supplementary material, showing precipitation and temperature changes over seasons.

__________

1. Related to my first comment, I am curios whether you observed any ebullition during your measurements and needed to discard some of them because of it? Ebullition can happen anywhere in a peatland but is more common on wet surfaces. In the studied peatland it is said to also be bare peat without a living Sphagnum moss cover in some locations. In my experience, these kinds of bare peat surfaces characteristic to some bogs can be very wet and challenging to measure because of ebullition. Did you measure any bare peat locations? I like that you paid attention to only causing minimal disturbance for the peatland (snowshoes, marking the measurement spots beforehand), but as there were no boardwalks in the studied area, it is always possible to cause some disturbance and trigger ebullition when stepping close to the measurement spot for closing the chamber etc. Please, add a note to the manuscript about how many measurements (if any) were discarded because of some disturbance. 

Our response: This is also a very important comment. We were expecting “ebullition like” events in our study, but we did not observe any clear event of that nature. We agree with the Reviewer 2's hypothesis that this could be attributed to measurements only under non-flooded conditions. In such conditions, when a bubble reaches the acrotelm, it probably diffuses through the void fraction of the organic layer, moderating the abrupt gas concentration increase that would be observed otherwise, when for instance, a bubble reaches a flooded surface. In this work, we measured emissions from the mean CH₄/CO₂ concentration during steady states. These concentrations were varying and might include some unidentified ebullitive components, as well as variations of the gas exchanges between the chamber ant the atmosphere.

We will include a discussion on that point in the final version of our manuscript.

__________

1. On the line 85 it is said that you measured the CO₂and CH₄fluxes “…at different vegetation covers and terrain.”. How did the measurement locations differ in their vegetation? Did you conduct any vegetation measurements, such as cover estimation per species, for each spot? If so, could you add this information in the supplementary material?

Our response: Certainly, this would be a nice add-on. We included, as example of vegetation cover, an additional Table S2 (similar to Tables 2 and S1). This Table will give the percentage of the vegetation cover, for seven classes observed; (i) Sphagnum magellanicum; (ii) Ericaceae species (Empetrum rubrum and Gaultheria pumila); (iii) Tetroncium magellanicum; (iv) Nothofagus antarctica; (v) Polytrichum spp.; (vi) Lichens (Cladonia arbuscula and Coelopogon epiphorellus); (vii) exposed peat surface. This inclusion will require a slight modification of the Material and Methods, and a short results section, that will be included in the final version of our manuscript.

__________

1. How much did the temperature inside the chamber increase during measurements? On the line 147 it is said that there was light/temperature data logger inside the chamber, but you do not present or discuss the temperature in any way. A transparent light chamber, such as the skirt-chamber, acts easily as a little greenhouse, especially when the weather is sunny. In my experience, temperature inside the chamber can increase several degrees in sunny conditions already during a short chamber closure (2-4 minutes) when measuring with the static chamber method, and thus I have used a cooling system in my static chamber measurements when needed to keep the temperature in the chamber as close to the ambient temperature as possible. As the skirt-chamber does not have a cooling system and the total chamber closure is relatively long (15-17 minutes), 10-12 minutes of which in light conditions, it can potentially result in significant temperature rise and moisture condensation in the chamber, which alter the conditions during a measurement. Temperature affects the activity of both CH4 producing and consuming microbes, photosynthesis and respiration rates of plants, evapotranspiration, solubility of the gases, etc. Therefore, it is important to take temperature into account in flux calculations based on the static chamber measurements. In your flux calculations based on the open dynamic skirt-chamber temperature is not included. Could you elaborate on that? Please, also add information about the temperature inside the chamber in the supplementary material if possible.

Our response: We agree that this discussion is important and regret its omission from our  previous manuscript version. Typically, we observed moderated temperatures increases during chamber deployments, ranging from -0.19 − 4.25 °C with a mean of 0.83 ± 1.30 °C (standard deviation) above the ambient air temperature. In some cases, a decrease in temperature was observed, and this cooling effect was systematically observed after the dark screen was placed on the chamber for respiration measurement (step 4). We attribute the relatively moderate temperature increases observed to several factors. Firstly, as a characteristic of the skirt-chamber, there is a constant gas exchange with the exterior, thus reducing heat accumulation within the chamber. Secondly, the light intensity was moderated due to the relatively low latitude and the lack of transparency of the chamber (as discussed in our manuscript). In the final version of our manuscript, we will provide examples of the temperature behavior of the skirt-chamber (supplementary material) and include a short statistical analysis of the skirt-chamber's temperature behavior.

__________