Important Contributions of Non-fossil Fuel Nitrogen Oxides Emissions

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2021 Jan 12

PMID 33431857

Citations 7

Authors

Wei Song

Xue-Yan Liu

Chao-Chen Hu

Guan-Yi Chen

Xue-Jun Liu

Wendell W Walters

Greg Michalski

Cong-Qiang Liu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Since the industrial revolution, it has been assumed that fossil-fuel combustions dominate increasing nitrogen oxide (NO) emissions. However, it remains uncertain to the actual contribution of the non-fossil fuel NO to total NO emissions. Natural N isotopes of NO in precipitation (δN) have been widely employed for tracing atmospheric NO sources. Here, we compiled global δN observations to evaluate the relative importance of fossil and non-fossil fuel NO emissions. We found that regional differences in human activities directly influenced spatial-temporal patterns of δN variations. Further, isotope mass-balance and bottom-up calculations suggest that the non-fossil fuel NO accounts for 55 ± 7% of total NO emissions, reaching up to 21.6 ± 16.6Mt yr in East Asia, 7.4 ± 5.5Mt yr in Europe, and 21.8 ± 18.5Mt yr in North America, respectively. These results reveal the importance of non-fossil fuel NO emissions and provide direct evidence for making strategies on mitigating atmospheric NO pollution.

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