Global reconstruction reduces the uncertainty of oceanic nitrous oxide emissions and reveals a vigorous seasonal cycle

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Yang, Simon, Chang, Bonnie X., Warner, Mark J., Weber, Thomas S., Bourbonnais, Annie M., Santoro, Alyson E., Kock, Annette, Sonnerup, Rolf E., Bullister, John L., Wilson, Samuel T., Bianchi, Daniele
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2020
• Subjects: Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/49863/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/49863/1/11954.full.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1921914117

Assessment of the global budget of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide ([Formula: see text]O) is limited by poor knowledge of the oceanic [Formula: see text]O flux to the atmosphere, of which the magnitude, spatial distribution, and temporal variability remain highly uncertain. Here, we reconstruct climatological [Formula: see text]O emissions from the ocean by training a supervised learning algorithm with over 158,000 [Formula: see text]O measurements from the surface ocean-the largest synthesis to date. The reconstruction captures observed latitudinal gradients and coastal hot spots of [Formula: see text]O flux and reveals a vigorous global seasonal cycle. We estimate an annual mean [Formula: see text]O flux of 4.2 ± 1.0 Tg N[Formula: see text], 64% of which occurs in the tropics, and 20% in coastal upwelling systems that occupy less than 3% of the ocean area. This [Formula: see text]O flux ranges from a low of 3.3 ± 1.3 Tg N[Formula: see text] in the boreal spring to a high of 5.5 ± 2.0 Tg N[Formula: see text] in the boreal summer. Much of the seasonal variations in global [Formula: see text]O emissions can be traced to seasonal upwelling in the tropical ocean and winter mixing in the Southern Ocean. The dominant contribution to seasonality by productive, low-oxygen tropical upwelling systems (>75%) suggests a sensitivity of the global [Formula: see text]O flux to El Niño-Southern Oscillation and anthropogenic stratification of the low latitude ocean. This ocean flux estimate is consistent with the range adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but reduces its uncertainty by more than fivefold, enabling more precise determination of other terms in the atmospheric [Formula: see text]O budget.