Reviewing global estimates of surface reactive nitrogen concentration and deposition using satellite retrievals

Abstract

Abstract. Since the industrial revolution, human activities have dramatically changed the nitrogen (N) cycle in natural systems. Anthropogenic emissions of reactive nitrogen (Nr) can return to the earth's surface through atmospheric Nr deposition. Increased Nr deposition may improve ecosystem productivity. However, excessive Nr deposition can cause a series of negative effects on ecosystem health, biodiversity, soil, and water. Thus, accurate estimations of Nr deposition are necessary for evaluating its environmental impacts. The United States, Canada and Europe have successively launched a number of satellites with sensors that allow retrieval of atmospheric NO2 and NH3 column density and therefore estimation of surface Nr concentration and deposition at an unprecedented spatiotemporal scale. Atmosphere NH3 column can be retrieved from atmospheric infra-red emission, while atmospheric NO2 column can be retrieved from reflected solar radiation. In recent years, scientists attempted to estimate surface Nr concentration and deposition using satellite retrieval of atmospheric NO2 and NH3 columns. In this study, we give a thorough review of recent advances of estimating surface Nr concentration and deposition using the satellite retrievals of NO2 and NH3, present a framework of using satellite data to estimate surface Nr concentration and deposition based on recent works, and summarize the existing challenges for estimating surface Nr concentration and deposition using the satellite-based methods. We believe that exploiting satellite data to estimate Nr deposition has a broad and promising prospect.

Significant contributions of combustion‐related NH3 and non‐fossil fuel NOx to elevation of nitrogen deposition in southwestern China over past five decades

“…Although China started the deposition monitoring in 1988 (Fu et al, 2010), the nationwide Nitrogen Deposition Monitoring Network started in 2004 (Xu et al, 2019). Recently, combining with observations since the 1980s (Wen et al, 2020) and the satellite data (Liu et al, 2020), studies have presented currently still very general and inadequate flux information of regional N deposition in China. However, with high heterogeneities in time and space and in physicochemical forms, N deposition levels are still very unclear in many regions due to quite sparse observation sites, limited time series, and high cost of equipment maintenance over large domains, especially for the broad non‐urban and remote areas (Pan et al, 2012; Xu et al, 2015).…”

Improving Estimates of Sulfur, Nitrogen, and Ozone Total Deposition through Multi-Model and Measurement-Model Fusion Approaches

“…Therefore, a coupling between models and observations by data assimilation could misrepresent the model mass balance between the input emissions, the atmospheric content, and the deposition flux . A review of some relevant methods and current limitations in deriving surface concentration and deposition estimates from satellite observations can be found in Liu et al 2020b . Direct assimilation of satellite observations of atmospheric composition in atmospheric chemical forecast models also has the potential to provide improvements into near-real time deposition predictions, but this technique has thus far not been explored for deposition.…”

Improvement of stomatal resistance and photosynthesis mechanism of Noah-MP-WDDM (v1.42) in simulation of NO<sub>2</sub> dry deposition velocity in forests

“…In this situation, the simulated concentration can be verified and nudged by measuring stable oxygen and nitrogen isotope ratios (Guerrieri et al, 2020). At the same time, the simplification and biases of the deposition mechanism in the models compared with satellite retrievals cannot be ignored (Liu et al, 2020). Deposition velocity is difficult to measure and is affected by many coupled physical, chemical and biological processes occurring at the deposition interface.…”