Nitrogen has key role in estimating CO2 emissions from land use change
http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/13/0419CO2_AtulJain.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]Nitrogen has key role in estimating CO2 emissions from land use change[/font]
4/19/2013 | Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor | 217-244-1073; eahlberg@illinois.edu
[font size=3]CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new global-scale modeling study that takes into account nitrogen a key nutrient for plants estimates that carbon emissions from human activities on land were 40 percent higher in the 1990s than in studies that did not account for nitrogen.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Bristol Cabot Institute published their findings in the journal Global Change Biology. The findings will be a part of the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
One nutrient can make a huge impact on the carbon cycle and net emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, said study leader Atul Jain, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the U. of I. We know that climate is changing, but the question is how much? To understand that, we have to understand interactive feedback processes the interactions of climate with the land, but also interactions between nutrients within the land.
Jains team, in collaboration with Joanna House, a researcher at the University of Bristols Cabot Institute, concluded that by not accounting for nitrogen as a limiting nutrient for plant growth, other models might have underestimated the 1990s carbon emissions from land use change by 70 percent in nontropical regions and by 40 percent globally.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12207