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Airborne Nitrogen and Climate Change

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Book cover Nitrogen and Climate Change

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Abstract

Nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are both gases and are commonly grouped together as NOx (pronounced ‘nox’). Like nitrous oxide, the NOx gases are oxidised forms of nitrogen, with fossil fuel burning, biomass burning and cultivated soils being their largest anthropogenic sources1,2 (Figure 5.1). Unlike nitrous oxide, these gases are highly reactive, with short atmospheric lifetimes and the ability to cause severe illness and even death in humans. Early fossil fuel-driven emissions of these NOx gases were dominated by the release of the trace amounts of reactive nitrogen contained in coal as it was burned3. With the advent of higher temperature boilers and the rapid spread of the internal combustion engine, more and more NOx was produced by the direct reaction of dinitrogen gas with oxygen — the high temperatures in power station furnaces and vehicle engines breaking apart the twin atoms of nitrogen gas and combining them with oxygen. The NOx gases that flow from exhausts and chimneys are usually in the highly reactive form of nitric oxide. Being so very reactive, this gas quickly combines with more oxygen and is converted into the brownish, acrid-smelling gas called nitrogen dioxide. The amounts released from burning fossil fuels have rocketed over the past century, especially since the Second World War. As the sulphur-enriched smogs of the 1950s began to clear, the injections of NOx into the atmosphere became more intense4.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Edinburgh, UK

    Dave Reay (Professor of Carbon Management and Assistant Principal, Global Environment & Society)

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© 2015 Dave Reay

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Reay, D. (2015). Airborne Nitrogen and Climate Change. In: Nitrogen and Climate Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286963_6

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