A global budget for atmospheric NH3

Abstract

Abstract. We provide an assessment of the global sources of NH, in the atmosphere, which indicates an annual flux of about 75 Tg of N as NH,. The emissions from land are dominated by the release of NH, during the hydrolysis of urea from the urine of domestic animals (32 TgN/yr) and by emanations from soils in unmanaged' ecosystems (10 TgN/yr) and from fertilized agricultural soils (9 TgN/yr). Emissions from the sea surface may approach 13 TgN/yr. The total annual source of NH, is in reasonable agreement with estimates of global NH: deposition from the atmosphere, the major fate of atmospheric NH,. As an alkaline atmospheric species, NH, emitted to the atmosphere each year can neutralize only about 32% of the annual production of H+ in the atmosphere from natural and anthropogenic sources.

A Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer for ambient measurements of Ammonia

“…By comparing with other studies cited here, Kent seems to fall into the range of a typical rural region, with regard to the ambient [NH 3 ] level. For example, [NH 3 ] in the remote marine atmosphere were 86 pptv on average (Schlesinger and Hartley, 1992) and as low as 20 pptv in some remote areas (Dentener and Crutzen, 1994). Rural regions in the eastern United States have shown [NH 3 ] of 100-500 pptv (Dentener and Crutzen, 1994) with a mean [NH 3 ] of 300 pptv (Langford et al, 1992).…”

“…Rural regions in the eastern United States have shown [NH 3 ] of 100-500 pptv (Dentener and Crutzen, 1994) with a mean [NH 3 ] of 300 pptv (Langford et al, 1992). Global NH 3 emission data taken with infrared satellite observations show that concentrations in the eastern United States are low and no significant hotspots exist in this region (Clarisse et al, 2009 (Dentener and Crutzen, 1994) and [NH 3 ] up to 430 ppbv have been seen in strong point source locations (Schlesinger and Hartley, 1992). Emission measurements made in different automobile tunnels have shown [NH 3 ] of 50-400 ppbv (Fraser and Cass, 1998;Kean et al, 2000;Moeckli et al, 2004) [NH 3 ] of 20-70 ppbv have also been reported from smoke (Yokelson et al, 1999Goode et al, 2000), as well as 100-200 ppbv in biomass burning plumes (Hurst et al, 1994;Li et al, 2006).…”

“…Sources of NH 3 stem mostly from anthropogenic emissions such as livestock excrement, biomass burning, fertilizer application, and automobile emissions (Schlesinger and Hartley, 1992;Dentener and Crutzen, 1994;Fraser and Cass, 1998;Kean et al, 2000;Moeckli et al, 2004;Clarisse et al, 2009). Tropospheric NH 3 mixing ratios ([NH 3 ]) range from several pptv up to several hundreds ppbv and sometimes even up to several hundreds ppmv levels (Gilliland et al, 2003;Huai et al, 2003;Herndon et al, 2005;Li et al, 2006;Nowak et al, 2007), depending on the proximity to emission sources, altitude, and acidity of aerosol particles present in the atmosphere.…”

Nitrogen mobilization in the United States of America and the People's Republic of China

“…For China, we use,:t a range of emission factors because of the differences in animal husbandry. To calculate Chinese minima and maxima animal emission factors, w~ used the Dentener and Crutzen (1994) values, reduced by 40% to account for the dispersive nature of animal husbandry practices in less-developed countries (Dentener and Crutzen, 1994), together with the Schlesinger and Hartley (1992) and the Zhao and Wang (1994) values (Table 4). We did not consider Battye et al (1994) because their values are based specifically on the 1991 animal population structures of animals in the United States (Table 4) …”

Assessing the role of ammonia in sulfur transformation and deposition in China

“…The spatial differences of SO 2 and NH 3 concentrations between the two sites might be due to their different emission sources. SO 2 comes primarily from fossil fuel burning activities (e.g., coal consumption), while NH 3 comes generally from agricultural activities (Schlesinger and Hartley, 1992;Zhao and Wang, 1994;ECETOC, 1994;Bouwman et al, 1997). No evident correlation between SO 2 and NH 3 concentrations in the air at the two sampling sites (Fig.…”