Mystery Over Nitrogen's Ocean Exit Strategies
Saturday, April 12, 2014 - 11:01
in Earth & Climate
How is nitrogen removed from the ocean? Some new findings may provide answers. The debate centers on how nitrogen, one of the most important food sources for ocean life and a controller of atmospheric carbon dioxide, becomes converted to a form that can exit the ocean and return to the atmosphere where it is reused in the global nitrogen cycle. Researchers have argued over which of two nitrogen-removal mechanisms, denitrification and anammox, is most important in the oceans. The question is not just a scientific curiosity, but has real world applications because one mechanism contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than the other. read more