from Part IV - Managing nitrogen in relation to key societal threats
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2011
Executive summary
Nature of the problem
Reactive nitrogen (Nr) is of fundamental importance in biological and chemical processes in the atmosphere–biosphere system, altering the Earth's climate balance in many ways. These include the direct and indirect emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), atmospheric Nr deposition and tropospheric ozone formation (O3), both of which alter the biospheric CO2 sink, Nr supply effects on CH4 emissions, and the formation of secondary atmospheric aerosols resulting from the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH3).
Human production and release of Nr into the environment is thus expected to have been an important driver of European greenhouse balance. Until now, no assessment has been made of how much of an effect European Nr emissions are having on net warming or cooling.
Approaches
This chapter summarizes current knowledge of the role of Nr for global warming. Particular attention is given to the consequences of atmospheric Nr emissions. The chapter draws on inventory data and review of the literature to assess the contribution of anthropogenic atmospheric Nr emissons to the overall change in radiative forcing (between 1750 and 2005) that can be attributed to activities in Europe.
The use of Nr fertilizers has major additional effects on climate balance by allowing increased crop and feed production and larger populations of livestock and humans, but these indirect effects are not assessed here.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.