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Science 16 May 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5878, pp. 893 - 897
DOI: 10.1126/science.1150369
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Review

Impacts of Atmospheric Anthropogenic Nitrogen on the Open Ocean

R. A. Duce,1* J. LaRoche,2 K. Altieri,3 K. R. Arrigo,4 A. R. Baker,5 D. G. Capone,6 S. Cornell,7 F. Dentener,8 J. Galloway,9 R. S. Ganeshram,10 R. J. Geider,11 T. Jickells,5 M. M. Kuypers,12 R. Langlois,2 P. S. Liss,5 S. M. Liu,13 J. J. Middelburg,14 C. M. Moore,11 S. Nickovic,15 A. Oschlies,2 T. Pedersen,16 J. Prospero,17 R. Schlitzer,18 S. Seitzinger,3 L. L. Sorensen,19 M. Uematsu,20 O. Ulloa,21 M. Voss,22 B. Ward,23 L. Zamora17

Increasing quantities of atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen entering the open ocean could account for up to about a third of the ocean's external (nonrecycled) nitrogen supply and up to ~3% of the annual new marine biological production, ~0.3 petagram of carbon per year. This input could account for the production of up to ~1.6 teragrams of nitrous oxide (N2O) per year. Although ~10% of the ocean's drawdown of atmospheric anthropogenic carbon dioxide may result from this atmospheric nitrogen fertilization, leading to a decrease in radiative forcing, up to about two-thirds of this amount may be offset by the increase in N2O emissions. The effects of increasing atmospheric nitrogen deposition are expected to continue to grow in the future.

1 Departments of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
2 Leibniz-Institut fuer Meereswissenschaften, 24105 Kiel, Germany.
3 Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, Rutgers/NOAA CMER Program, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
4 Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
5 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
6 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
7 QUEST–Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK.
8 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, TP290, I-21020, Ispra (Va), Italy.
9 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA.
10 John Murray Laboratories, The King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK.
11 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK, and National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
12 Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstrasse 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany.
13 Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, Peoples Republic of China.
14 Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Korringaweg 7, 4401 NT Yerseke, Netherlands.
15 Atmospheric Research and Environment Programme, World Meteorological Organization, BP2300, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland.
16 University of Victoria, Post Office Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC V8W 3P6, Canada.
17 Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA.
18 Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany.
19 National Environmental Research Institute, Aarhus University, Denmark.
20 Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan.
21 Departamento de Oceanografía, Centro de Investigación Oceanográfica, COPAS, and Nucleo Milenio EMBA, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile.
22 Leibnitz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Warnemünde, 18119 Rostock, Germany.
23 Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rduce{at}ocean.tamu.edu

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