A Near‐Global Atmospheric Distribution of N2O Isotopologues
Abstract
The distributions of the four most abundant isotopologues and isotopomers (N 2 O, 15 NNO, N 15 NO, and NN 18 O) of nitrous oxide have been measured in the Earth's stratosphere by infrared remote sensing with the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) Fourier transform spectrometer. These satellite observations have provided a near‐global picture of N 2 O isotopic fractionation. The relative abundances of the heavier species increase with altitude and with latitude in the stratosphere as the air becomes older. The heavy isotopologues are enriched by 20–30% in the upper stratosphere and even more over the poles. These observations are in general agreement with model predictions made with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). A detailed 3‐D chemical transport model is needed to account for the global isotopic distributions of N 2 O and to infer sources and sinks.
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Many satellites are equipped with hyperspectral cameras and can perform, to some extent, estimations of CO2, CH4, H2O, and N2O emissions.
“Many satellites are equipped with such cameras and can perform, to some extent, estimations of CO 2 , CH 4 (methane), H 2 O, and N 2 O (nitrous oxide) emissions [73,378].”
From Tackling climate change with machine learning (2023) · cites this paper as [73]
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Tackling climate change with machine learning
Rolnick, D., Donti, P. L., Kaack, L. H., Kochanski, K., Lacoste, A., Sankaran, K., Ross, A. S., Milojevic-Dupont, N., Jaques, N., Waldman-Brown, A., et al. (2023) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/3485128 · Cited by 336 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bernath, P. F., Yousefi, M., Buzan, E., & Boone, C. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- Old Dominion University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bernath, Peter F.
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2017-10-28
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 20
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W2763330049
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 0.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- ODU Digital Commons (Old Dominion University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Space Agency
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric Ozone and Climate
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
- Keywords
- nitrous oxide, isotope fractionation, stratosphere, satellite remote sensing, Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment, infrared spectroscopy, polar stratosphere, isotopomer distribution, chemical transport modeling, WACCM
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