Ever since the industrial revolution, nitrogen fixation induced by human activities has considerably altered the nitrogen cycling process on the Earth.
Quantifying the historical change of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and identifying the driving forces are crucial to evaluate and predict the nitrogen cycle in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
Ice core is a faithful recorder of long-time scale atmospheric nitrate (NO3-) deposition, and nitrogen stable isotopic measurements can help identify the factors affecting the historical change of nitrogen deposition. The nitrogen stable isotope composition (δ15N) in previous Arctic ice core NO3- has shown a significant decrease since the 1850s while NO3- concentration shown a significant increase, revealing a definite effect from anthropogenic activities. However, controversy still exists in the mechanisms of how anthropogenic activities affect the change of δ15N in atmospheric NO3-.
To further improve our understanding of historical changes in nitrate deposition, Prof. FANG Yunting's group from the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Prof. TIAN Lide's group from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of CAS and Prof. Meredith G. Hastings' group from Brown University, firstly explored the atmospheric nitrogen deposition and isotope characteristics over the last 200 years in a Tibetan Plateau ice core.
The researchers, in their paper, reported that the NO3- concentration in Tibetan Plateau ice core increased significantly from pre-1900 to post-1950.
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