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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Fri Feb 17, 2012, 12:37 PM Feb 2012

Nitrogen Pollution Likely to Increase Under Climate Change

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nitrogen-pollution-likely-increase-climate-change

Scientists have recently found humanity's nitrogen footprint on watersheds once thought to be isolated and pristine, indicating our impact on the world is more widespread than previously imagined.

These findings show that natural nitrogen equilibriums have shifted drastically and are now driven largely by human factors. This world awash in nitrogen can have devastating effects on health, ecology and the climate.

Nitrogen is an important element to all life as we know it. However, its various forms are not equal in how they affect the environment. Nitrous oxide, for example, is an especially potent greenhouse gas. According to U.S. EPA, it is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, and it can stay in the atmosphere 300 years.

Meanwhile, nitrogen gas, which makes up close to 80 percent of the air we breathe, is relatively inert. Other forms, like nitrates, form aerosols in the atmosphere that can seed clouds, which generally have a net cooling effect on the climate.
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