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A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks
Open accessAbstract
Nitrous oxide (N 2 O), like carbon dioxide, is a long-lived greenhouse gas that accumulates in the atmosphere. Over the past 150 years, increasing atmospheric N 2 O concentrations have contributed to stratospheric ozone depletion 1 and climate change 2, with the current rate of increase estimated at 2 per cent per decade. Existing national inventories do not provide a full picture of N 2 O emissions, owing to their omission of natural sources and limitations in methodology for attributing anthropogenic sources. Here we present a global N 2 O inventory that incorporates both natural and anthropogenic sources and accounts for the interaction between nitrogen additions and the biochemical processes that control N 2 O emissions. We use bottom-up (inventory, statistical extrapolation of flux measurements, process-based land and ocean modelling) and top-down (atmospheric inversion) approaches to provide a comprehensive quantification of global N 2 O sources and sinks resulting from 21 natural and human sectors between 1980 and 2016. Global N 2 O emissions were 17.0 (minimum-maximum estimates: 12.2-23.5) teragrams of nitrogen per year (bottom-up) and 16.9 (15.9-17.7) teragrams of nitrogen per year (top-down) between 2007 and 2016. Global human-induced emissions, which are dominated by nitrogen additions to croplands, increased by 30% over the past four decades to 7.3 (4.2-11.4) teragrams of nitrogen per year. This increase was mainly responsible for the growth in the atmospheric burden. Our findings point to growing N 2 O emissions in emerging economies-particularly Brazil, China and India. Analysis of process-based model estimates reveals an emerging N 2 O-climate feedback resulting from interactions between nitrogen additions and climate change. The recent growth in N 2 O emissions exceeds some of the highest projected emission scenarios 3,4, underscoring the urgency to mitigate N 2 O emissions.
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In the citing paper
“Regarding N2O, anthropogenic sources contributed 43% of the total N2O emission of about 7.3 Tg per year, 1–4% of which originated from medical sources.20,34”
From A call for immediate climate action in anesthesiology: routine use of minimal or metabolic fresh gas flow reduces our ecological footprint (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
In the citing paper
“In 2014, inhalational anesthetics accounted for worldwide emission of approximately 3 Mt CO2e.”
From A call for immediate climate action in anesthesiology: routine use of minimal or metabolic fresh gas flow reduces our ecological footprint (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
In the citing paper
“Agriculture is responsible for approximately 70% of global anthropogenic N 2 O emissions (Tian et al., 2020), largely due to the inefficient use of nitrogen fertilisers.”
From Carbon for soils, not soils for carbon (2023) · cites this paper as Tian et al., 2020
Citations
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Self-citationSoil structure and microbiome functions in agroecosystems
Hartmann, M., & Six, J. (2022) · Nature Reviews Earth & Environment · doi:10.1038/s43017-022-00366-w · Cited by 1,406
A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018
Lamb, W. F., Wiedmann, T., Pongratz, J., Andrew, R. M., Crippa, M., Olivier, J. G. J., Wiedenhofer, D., Mattioli, G., Khourdajie, A. A., House, J. I., et al. (2021) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abee4e · Cited by 1,320
Greenhouse gases emissions and global climate change: Examining the influence of CO2, CH4, and N2O
Filonchyk, M., Peterson, M. P., Zhang, L., Hurynovich, V., & He, Y. (2024) · The Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173359 · Cited by 1,299
The global methane budget 2000–2012
Saunois, M., Bousquet, P., Poulter, B., Peregon, A. M., Ciais, P., Canadell, J. G., Dlugokencky, E. J., Etiope, G., Bastviken, D., Houweling, S., et al. (2016) · Earth system science data · doi:10.5194/essd-8-697-2016 · Cited by 1,108
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tian, H., Xu, R., Canadell, J. G., Thompson, R. L., Winiwarter, W., Suntharalingam, P., Davidson, E. A., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Janssens-Maenhout, G., Prather, M. J., Regnier, P., Pan, N., Pan, S., Peters, G. P., Shi, H., Tubiello, F. N., Zaehle, S., Zhou, F., Arneth, A., Battaglia, G., Berthet, S., Bopp, L., Bouwman, A. F., Buitenhuis, E. T., Chang, J., Chipperfield, M. P., Dangal, S. R. S., Dlugokencky, E., Elkins, J. W., Eyre, B. D., Fu, B., Hall, B., Ito, A., Joos, F., Krummel, P. B., Landolfi, A., Laruelle, G. G., Lauerwald, R., Li, W., Lienert, S., Maavara, T., MacLeod, M., Millet, D. B., Olin, S., Patra, P. K., Prinn, R. G., Raymond, P. A., Ruiz, D. J., van der Werf, G. R., Vuichard, N., Wang, J., Weiss, R. F., Wells, K. C., Wilson, C., Yang, J., & Yao, Y.
- Affiliations
- Auburn University (US)
- CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (AU)
- NILU (NO)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
- University of East Anglia (GB)
- University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Stanford University (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- CICERO Center for International Climate Research (NO)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (IT)
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (DE)
- Peking University (CN)
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
- University of Bern (CH)
- University of Leeds (GB)
- Woodwell Climate Research Center (US)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US)
- Southern Cross University (AU)
- National Institute for Environmental Studies (JP)
- GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (DE)
- Yale University (US)
- Scotland's Rural College (GB)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Lund University (SE)
- Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JP)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Ocean University of China (CN)
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US)
- Mississippi State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tian, Hanqin
- ORCID
- Tian, Hanqin
- Xu, Rongting
- Canadell, Josep G.
- Thompson, Rona L.
- Winiwarter, Wilfried
- Suntharalingam, Parvadha
- Davidson, Eric A.
- Ciais, Philippe
- Jackson, Robert B.
- Janssens-Maenhout, Greet
- Prather, Michael J.
- Regnier, Pierre
- Pan, Naiqing
- Pan, Shufen
- Peters, Glen P.
- Shi, Hao
- Tubiello, Francesco N.
- Zaehle, Sönke
- Zhou, Feng
- Arneth, Almut
- Battaglia, Gianna
- Berthet, Sarah
- Bopp, Laurent
- Buitenhuis, Erik T.
- Chang, Jinfeng
- Chipperfield, Martyn P.
- Dangal, Shree R. S.
- Dlugokencky, Edward
- Elkins, James W.
- Eyre, Bradley D.
- Fu, Bojie
- Hall, Bradley
- Ito, Akihiko
- Joos, Fortunat
- Krummel, Paul B.
- Landolfi, Angela
- Laruelle, Goulven G.
- Lauerwald, Ronny
- Li, Wei
- Lienert, Sebastian
- Maavara, Taylor
- MacLeod, Michael
- Millet, Dylan B.
- Olin, Stefan
- Patra, Prabir K.
- Prinn, Ronald G.
- Raymond, Peter A.
- Ruiz, Daniel J.
- van der Werf, Guido R.
- Vuichard, Nicolas
- Wang, Junjie
- Weiss, Ray F.
- Wells, Kelley C.
- Wilson, Chris
- Yang, Jia
- Yao, Yuanzhi
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2020-10-07
- Volume
- 586
- Issue
- 7828
- Pages
- 248-256
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W3092621662
- Cited by
- 1,959
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2026: 300 · 2025: 404 · 2024: 414 · 2023: 321 · 2022: 320 · 2021: 178 · 2020: 18
- FWCI
- 77.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) (acceptedVersion)
- IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (submittedVersion)
- UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
- Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Joint Research Centre (European Commission) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (NNX10AU06G, 1922687, 1903722, 1243232, NNX11AD47G)
- U.S. Department of Energy (DESC0012536)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX10AU06G, NNX14AO73G, NNX17AI74G, NNX14AO73G, NNX10AU06G, NNX11AD47G and NNX14AF93G, NNX16AC97G, NNX14AF93G, NNX16AC96G, NNX13AL12G, NNX11AD47G, NNX17AK18G, NNX16AC98G)
- Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division
- Scottish Government
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB‐754)
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (2016-2021, ANR-16-CONV-0003)
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (56910, 172476)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (2017YFA0604702, 41671464, 41961124006, 1903722)
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (016.160.324)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA13OAR4310086, NA16NOS4780207, NA16NOS4780204)
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (821003, 647204, 820989, 776810, EC H2020, 641816, 2016-2021)
- Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R016518/1, nceo020004)
- Australian Research Council (LP150100519, LP190100271)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (821003, 17H01867)
- Climate Program Office
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (B628407)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
- Keywords
- nitrous oxide, nitrous oxide emissions, greenhouse gas inventory, anthropogenic emissions, N2O sinks, temperature inversion, bottom-up estimation, emerging markets
- MeSH terms
- Agriculture, Atmosphere, Human Activities, Nitrogen, Nitrous Oxide, Crops, Agricultural, Internationality
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