article · Environmental Science & Technology
Agricultural soils contribute roughly one-third of human-generated nitrous oxide emissions, an impactful greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting agent. A nine-year field study examined how simultaneous increases in air temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide alter nitrous oxide release pathways using nitrogen-15 tracing. Elevated temperatures stimulated nitrous oxide emissions arising from both nitrification and denitrification processes. However, elevated carbon dioxide levels fully counteracted this warming-driven increase. The atmospheric carbon dioxide enrichment caused declines in soil pH and labile organic nitrogen, which masked the positive effects of warming on soil organic carbon and nitrogen availability. Neither elevated temperature nor enriched carbon dioxide significantly altered the abundance of nitrifying or denitrifying genes. These findings demonstrate the necessity of multi-factor climate assessments to accurately model agroecosystem emissions under future climate scenarios.
Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that damages the ozone layer, with agricultural soils serving as a major source. Understanding how climate warming and rising carbon dioxide interact under realistic field conditions enables scientists and planners to refine environmental models, forecast future agricultural emissions with greater precision, and develop more effective options to address climate change.
This mechanistic research can inform the parameterisation of agroecosystem simulation software and carbon accounting tools used by climate modellers, environmental consultants, and agricultural policy agencies. Because the findings derive from fundamental soil dynamics rather than an applied tool or product, this work sits at an early stage of scientific research and remains far from direct commercial use.
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Globally, agricultural soils account for approximately one-third of anthropogenic emissions of the potent greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone-depleting substance nitrous oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O). Emissions of N<sub>2</sub>O from agricultural soils are affected by a number of global change factors, such as elevated air temperatures and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>). Yet, a mechanistic understanding of how these climatic factors affect N<sub>2</sub>O emissions in agricultural soils remains largely unresolved. Here, we investigate the soil N<sub>2</sub>O emission pathway using a <sup>15</sup>N tracing approach in a nine-year field experiment using a combined temperature and free air carbon dioxide enrichment (T-FACE). We show that the effect of CO<sub>2</sub> enrichment completely counteracts warming-induced stimulation of both nitrification- and denitrification-derived N<sub>2</sub>O emissions. The elevated CO<sub>2</sub> induced decrease in pH and labile organic nitrogen (N) masked the stimulation of organic carbon and N by warming. Unexpectedly, both elevated CO<sub>2</sub> and warming had little effect on the abundances of the nitrifying and denitrifying genes. Overall, our study confirms the importance of multifactorial experiments to understand N<sub>2</sub>O emission pathways from agricultural soils under climate change. This better understanding is a prerequisite for more accurate models and the development of effective options to combat climate change.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c10775
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