GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Microbial processes of nitrification and denitrification produce nitrous oxide which is then released into the atmosphere. Similarly, the use of manure as a fertilizer also leads to emissions from agricultural soils.

Detailed explanation-2: -But the largest source of nitrous oxide is agriculture, particularly fertilized soil and animal waste, and that makes it harder to rein in. “One could imagine limiting carbon dioxide, less methane, less of lots of things. But nitrous oxide is so much a food production issue, ” Ravishankara said.

Detailed explanation-3: -In essence, both synthetic and organic fertilizers increase the amount of nitrogen available to microbes in the soil, which turn it into nitrous oxide-though these two types of fertilizers can have very different impacts on N2O emissions.

Detailed explanation-4: -Climate scientists have assumed that the cause of the increased nitrous oxide was nitrogen-based fertilizer, which stimulates microbes in the soil to convert nitrogen to nitrous oxide at a faster rate than normal.

Detailed explanation-5: -The primary source of nitrous oxide emissions in agriculture is fertilizer. Numbers vary from place to place, but fertilizer is responsible for somewhere around 70 percent of agriculture’s nitrous oxide emissions.