Essay by Eric Worrall
“… The current findings therefore are no reason to gloss over the harmful effects, let alone see additional nitrogen input as a means of combating global warming. …”
JULY 24, 2024
Net effects of man-made nitrogen attenuate global warming, researchers findby Eberhard Fritz, Max Planck Society
Nitrogen fertilizers and nitrogen oxides from fossil fuels are known for their environmental damage: they pollute the air and drinking water, lead to over-fertilization of water and land ecosystems, reduce biodiversity and damage the ozone layer.
As far as climate is concerned, however, they have a net cooling effect. This is the conclusion reached by an international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena in a comprehensive analysis. In it, the scientists take stock of the various climate effects of nitrogen compounds from agricultural and non-agricultural sources.…
Without man-made nitrogen input, the climate would have heated up even more
The international team, led by Sönke Zaehle and Cheng Gong from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, has now summarized the various warming and cooling effects, in a study which has been published in the journal Nature. They found that reactive nitrogen, which enters the Earth system through human activities, cools the climate by an amount of -0.34 watts per square meter—in climate research, this is referred to as a net negative radiative forcing.
…
“This may sound like good news, but you have to bear in mind that nitrogen emissions have many harmful effects, for example on health, biodiversity and the ozone layer,” says Zaehle. “The current findings therefore are no reason to gloss over the harmful effects, let alone see additional nitrogen input as a means of combating global warming.”
…
Read more: https://phys.org/news/2024-07-net-effects-nitrogen-attenuate-global.html
The abstract of the study;
Published: 24 July 2024
Global net climate effects of anthropogenic reactive nitrogen
Cheng Gong, Hanqin Tian, Hong Liao, Naiqing Pan, Shufen Pan, Akihiko Ito, Atul K. Jain, Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Fortunat Joos, Qing Sun, Hao Shi, Nicolas Vuichard, Qing Zhu, Changhui Peng, Federico Maggi, Fiona H. M. Tang & Sönke Zaehle
Nature (2024)Cite this article
Abstract
Anthropogenic activities have substantially enhanced the loadings of reactive nitrogen (Nr) in the Earth system since pre-industrial times1,2, contributing to widespread eutrophication and air pollution3,4,5,6. Increased Nr can also influence global climate through a variety of effects on atmospheric and land processes but the cumulative net climate effect is yet to be unravelled. Here we show that anthropogenic Nr causes a net negative direct radiative forcing of −0.34 [−0.20, −0.50] W m−2 in the year 2019 relative to the year 1850. This net cooling effect is the result of increased aerosol loading, reduced methane lifetime and increased terrestrial carbon sequestration associated with increases in anthropogenic Nr, which are not offset by the warming effects of enhanced atmospheric nitrous oxide and ozone. Future predictions using three representative scenarios show that this cooling effect may be weakened primarily as a result of reduced aerosol loading and increased lifetime of methane, whereas in particular N2O-induced warming will probably continue to increase under all scenarios. Our results indicate that future reductions in anthropogenic Nr to achieve environmental protection goals need to be accompanied by enhanced efforts to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to achieve climate change mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07714-4
This follows on from recent bad good news that CO2 is greening the deserts;
If we get much more of this bad good news, people might start asking if it is actually good news, and if claims we are experiencing a global climate crisis are wildly exaggerated.
NMIP2 model ensembles used with CHIMP6 model ensembles…….. yawn !!!
and of course, the mandatory “radiative forcings”… YAWN !
“Here we present a comprehensive model framework”…. triple YAWNnnnnn!
“2019 relative to the year 1850”..
Yes, yes, of course you have data from 1850., about as much as you have temperature data.
A decrease in radiative forcing of -0.34 [-0.20, -0.50] W m-2 means that an additional 0.34 W m-2 of solar radiation is reflected back to space by ‘ammonium’ and ‘nitrate’ aerosols compared to a hypothetical 1850 baseline. The number that is not provided is the annual change in the radiative forcing. Based on Figure 2 of this paper, almost all of the increases in ‘reactive nitrogen’ have occurred since 1950. Assuming a linear response over 68 years, the annual increase in reflected solar flux at the top of the atmosphere is 0.005 W m-2 per year.
The peak solar flux at the surface is near 1000 W m-2 with the sun close to zenith. At night and in polar winter it is zero.
The net long wave IR (LWIR) cooling flux emitted by the surface into the LWIR transmission window varies from approximately zero to 100 W m-2.
Where is the thermal engineering calculation of the change in surface temperature?
What part of ‘too small to measure’ don’t these authors understand?
Why are they wasting their time and our tax money?
How many advanced degrees will get awarded for this nonsense?
Nothing is too small to measure if you ignore significant figures, do it many times so you can divide by √n, and pretend that measurement resolution is overridden by statistical analysis.
Always consider the temperature and wavelength of any IR radiation.
If it is more than 14.8 micrometer, CO2 cannot absorb it at ANY ELEVATION, but WV can.
Above 6 km, WV ppm is very low, so minimal absorption effect.
“How many advanced degrees will get awarded for this nonsense?”
Not only degrees and tenures. They also award Nobel prizes each year.
Gee, it had a greater warming effect than methane last week.
Then, the UK has really overdone the NO3
Not being capable of judging the veracity of this study and its conclusions, however what strikes me is that this is yet one more nail in the warmunists’ “the science is settled” coffin. If the science was settled, then why didn’t warmunists understand this mechanism decades ago when their ridiculous claims of settled science were made?
If something is settled, it means it is closed, finis, over with, cannot be improved upon, etc. etc. etc.
Of course the notion that any part of science is settled for all times is anti-scientific. Science is the search for understanding, not the enforcement of religious dogma. Religion is based upon faith, and science is supposed to be based on the assumption that we don’t yet know the full truth of how things are.
Warmunists are theocratic enforcers, not scientists.
nailed it!
“Nitrogen fertilizers and nitrogen oxides from fossil fuels are known for their environmental damage: they pollute the air and drinking water, lead to over-fertilization of water and land ecosystems, reduce biodiversity and damage the ozone layer.”
Over-fertilizatin occurs when misused. Doesn’t have to happen. Most farmers know this. And the ones that don’t can learn.
The mere existence of human beings reduces biodiversity because we use much of the planet. So what- lot’s of diversity out there.
And in a free economy, fertilizers cost money, so farmers try to avoid wasting it. In a Government command/control economy eg socialism, incentives are distorted and wasteful use is common.
And yet, the Leftist meme is that free enterprise is the cause of climate change, environmental degradation, etc, while socialism is the cure.
So nitrogen, an element, most common in the atmosphere, is man made? And these precisely worded and well edited headlings appear in a journal on Physics?
They refer to well-known implied difference between chemically inert N2 and chemically active bound nitrogen compounds – nitrogen oxides, acids, ammonia plus nitrogen in organic compounds. Chemically bound reactive nitrogen has both natural and anthropogenic sources. Natural sources are limiting bioproductivity. To increase crops output we use nitrogen fertilizers, such as ammonium nitrate.
Chemically bound nitrogen is also a big part of gunpowder and other explosives, so, by their logic, wars must cool the planet.
As if warming is a Bad Thing?
No, only in the minds of people that have a ID10T problem.
Is ANYTHING good?
Obviously the only way to save the planet is for 8 billion people to become extinct…. unless of course you are one of the exempt elite.
“The current findings therefore are no reason to gloss over the harmful effects, let alone see additional nitrogen input as a means of combating global warming.”
Does the actual paper specify a harmful effect. It says things like “health, biodiversity and the ozone layer” but those are just nouns. What’s the verb… what does however much nitrate fertilizer do to whomever person’s health?
NO2 is plant fertilizer.
“Nitrogen fertilizers and nitrogen oxides from fossil fuels are known for their environmental damage: they pollute the air and drinking water, lead to over-fertilization of water and land ecosystems, reduce biodiversity and damage the ozone layer.”
The references to “reactive nitrogen” seems to conflate nitrogen oxides with reduced nitrogen, such as fertilizers made from ammonia or urea.
Nitrogen oxides can be by-products of fossil fuel combustion, and can react with ozone in the stratosphere. Emissions of nitrogen oxides have been regulated by the EPA since the 1970’s.
The diagram accompanying the article talks about “volatilization” of NH3 (ammonia), which is reduced nitrogen, which does not react with ozone, although it is toxic in the atmosphere. Fertilizers contain amino compounds, which plants use to generate the amino acids in their proteins. The diagram also shows the use of manure, which also contains amino acids.
Nitrogen oxides and reduced nitrogen have very different effects on the environment. In fact, in response to EPA regulations to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides to the air, fossil-fuel power plants have installed “selective catalytic reduction” reactors on flue gas, where small amounts of ammonia are injected to react with nitrogen oxides and convert them to inert nitrogen (N2) and water vapor.
Ah thanks, that’s better.
Interesting conclusion. Apparently, the research is a political study.
I recognize we are in a global crisis but it isn’t a climate crisis rather it is an out of control government crisis. They are on a never ending quest for more power and control. They already have too much power and control.
So say the alarmists; those cheerful souls who manage to overlook the abundant sunshine and roses and paint everything in depressing grey shades of bleakness and misery. They’re great fun at dinner parties.
As the study reluctantly admits, nitrogen fertilizer is good. In fact, it may be the most important modern miracle in agriculture, responsible for huge improvements in crop yields that have saved billions of people from undernourishment and starvation over the last century. Soil microbes consume it and release nitrous oxide (N2O), which causes no environmental damage, does not pollute the air, nor does it reduce biodiversity. Its net (theorized but not measured) contribution to “global warming” over the last century is insignificant, equivalent to adding 17 ppm of CO2 since 1920. Despite its ozone-scavenging effect, its impact on stratospheric ozone and the “ozone hole” is theoretical and hasn’t been directly measured. N2O is destroyed by photochemistry in the stratosphere.
Nitrogen oxides like nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are emissions from internal combustion engines (ICE) and do pollute the air, but thanks to regulations and technological improvements, have substantially decreased (65%) for decades now, even as the number of ICEs has increased by about 60% to 70%.
Nitrogen fertilisers cool the planet and feed people. So they must be stopped?? These people are flat out crazy – they oppose anything that can work for people’s benefit.
BTW, I don’t think that cooling the planet is a good idea, but feeding people is a large enough benefit (see eg. Sri Lanka) that I’ll go along with it.