Soil nitric oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems in China: a synthesis of modeling and measurements

Soils are among the major sources of atmospheric nitric oxide (NO), which play a crucial role in atmospheric chemistry. Here we systematically synthesized the modeling studies and field measurements and presented a novel soil NO emission inventory of terrestrial ecosystems in China. The previously modeled inventories ranged from 480 to 1375 and from 242.8 to 550 Gg N yr(−1) for all lands and croplands, respectively. Nevertheless, all the previous modeling studies were conducted based on very few measurements from China. According to the current synthesis of field measurements, most soil NO emission measurements were conducted at croplands, while the measurements were only conducted at two sites for forest and grassland. The median NO flux was 3.2 ng N m(−2) s(−1) with a fertilizer induced emission factor (FIE) of 0.04% for rice fields, and was 7.1 ng N m(−2) s(−1) with an FIE of 0.67% for uplands. A novel NO emission inventory of 1226.33 (ranging from 588.24 to 2132.05) Gg N yr(−1) was estimated for China's terrestrial ecosystems, which was about 18% of anthropogenic emissions. More field measurements should be conducted to cover more biomes and obtain more representative data in order to well constrain soil NO emission inventory of China.