Climate warming reduces soil gaseous nitrogen losses in a temperate forest.

ABSTRACT: Global warming is projected to accelerate ecosystem nitrogen (N) loss via gaseous pathways, thereby decreasing N availability, a critical nutrient for primary productivity and carbon sequestration. However, the models forecasting this ecosystem N loss are based on laboratory experiments that are inherently uncertain and have had few in situ validations. Over 6 y, we measured ~200,000 soil nitric oxide (NO; an air pollutant) and nitrous oxide (N₂O; a powerful greenhouse gas) fluxes and used an upscaling approach to estimate N₂ fluxes after warming a temperate forest by 2 °C. Against thermodynamic theoretical predictions, warming unequivocally lowered emissions of NO by 19% and of N₂O by 16%. These lower gaseous N losses were not explained by complete reducti

SUBMITTER: Huang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12685039 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature