As climate change progresses, rising temperatures may impact nitrogen runoff from land to lakes and streams more than projected increases in total and extreme precipitation for most of the continental United States, according to new research from a team of Carnegie climate scientists led by Gang Zhao and Anna Michalak published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As climate change progresses, rising temperatures may impact nitrogen runoff from land to lakes and streams more than projected increases in total and extreme precipitation for most of the continental United States, according to new research from a team of Carnegie climate scientists led by Gang Zhao and Anna Michalak published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The conditions predicted by these findings are opposite to recent decades, when increasing precipitation has outpaced warming and led to more aquatic nitrogen pollution. Understanding the relative roles of changes in temperature and rainfall is critical for designing water quality management strategies that are robust to climate change while ensuring sustainable food and water supplies.
Human activity has completely altered how nitrogen moves through the planet’s aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric systems. Nitrogen from fertilizer washes into waterways and, in excess, can lead to toxin-producing algal blooms or low-oxygen dead zones called hypoxia. Over the past several summers, large algal blooms in lake and coastal regions across the United States have received extensive news coverage.
Read more at Carnegie Institution for Science
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