Increasing soil nitrous acid emissions driven by climate and fertilization change aggravate global ozone pollution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40074733.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-57161-6 and PMC identifier 11904233.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Soil microbial nitrous acid (HONO) production is an important source of atmospheric reactive nitrogen that affects air quality and climate. However, long-term global soil HONO emissions driven by climate change and fertilizer use have not been quantified. Here, we derive the global soil HONO emissions over the past four decades and evaluate their impacts on ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) and vegetation. Results show that climate change and the increased fertilizer use enhanced soil HONO emissions from 9.4 Tg N in 1980 to 11.5 Tg N in 2016. Chemistry-climate model simulations show that soil HONO emissions increased global surface O<sub>3</sub> mixing ratios by 2.5% (up to 29%) and vegetation risk to O<sub>3</sub>, with increasing impact during 1980s-2016 in low-anthropogenic-emission regions. With future decreasing anthropogenic emissions, the soil HONO impact on air quality and vegetation is expected to increase. We thus recommend consideration of soil HONO emissions in strategies for mitigating global air pollution.