Colette's (and Nicole, Anabelle and Karen) paper came out today in Global Biogeochemical Cycles. The title is: Quantifying Nitrous Oxide Cycling Regimes in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean With Isotopomer Analysis. Find it at: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GB006637.
This is the plain language summary:
Each molecule of nitrous oxide emitted to the atmosphere has the greenhouse gas potential of 265 molecules of carbon dioxide—in other words, if carbon dioxide were the currency of climate change, then nitrous oxide would be the $300 bill. But the mechanisms and rates by which nitrous oxide is produced in the ocean remain poorly constrained, especially in regions of the ocean with little to no oxygen. In the eastern tropical North Pacific oxygen‐deficient zone, we measured higher nitrous oxide concentrations near the surface than had previously been found in the region. Using the site‐specific isotope ratios of nitrogen and oxygen in nitrous oxide, we identified two potential sources contributing to these near‐surface accumulations of N2O. In the oxygen‐deficient waters below the near surface maximum, we found that low concentrations of nitrous oxide result from consumption of nitrous oxide, some of which is transported in from elsewhere, and not a balanced cycle of local production and consumption.
