Abstract
In terms of global climate, a leading impact of changing nitrogen input to terrestrial ecosystems is the huge alteration in nitrous oxide emissions it induces, especially in agricultural soils (see Chapter 4). As inputs have spiralled upwards over the last century, emissions of nitrous oxide via denitrification and nitrification in soils have followed suit. Globally, emissions from agricultural activities are now estimated to be between five and seven million tonnes of nitrogen as nitrous oxide each year1. The bulk of this comes directly from the nitrogen-enriched soils themselves, with the remainder either being emitted from manure stores or arising from the reactive nitrogen that is lost from the soils due to leaching or volatilisation. Nitrous oxide has a global warming potential (GWP) of around 300 times that of carbon dioxide on a mass basis — GWP is a way of standardising the amount of warming caused by different greenhouse gases so they can be compared to carbon dioxide2. Annual nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture are therefore equivalent to enhancing the greenhouse effect to the tune of about three billion extra tonnes of carbon dioxide a year — the annual emissions of a billion cars.
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© 2015 Dave Reay
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Reay, D. (2015). Terrestrial Nitrogen and Climate Change. In: Nitrogen and Climate Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286963_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286963_7
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