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The nitrogen challenge - global warming's missing link?

14 March 2006

Issued on behalf of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) by the Natural Environment Research Council.

A team of European researchers meet high in the Bavarian Alps this week to 'kick off' a €27m project investigating the global nitrogen cycle, a little known but important cause of global warming, air pollution and biodiversity loss.

The "NitroEurope" team, drawn from 64 European and international research organisations from 24 countries, is led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, part of the Natural Environment Research Council. 170 researchers are meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria from the 13-17 March 2006 to start work on the five year Project which is principally funded by the European Commission.

The Co-ordinator of NitroEurope, Dr Mark Sutton, based at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Edinburgh said, "The main aim of the NitroEurope project is to find out what the overall effect of nitrogen is on the European greenhouse gas balance."

Although excess nitrogen contributes substantially to issues such as changes in the carbon cycle, global warming, water quality, acid rain, biodiversity loss, and air pollution, the issue has so far received little attention from the scientific community.

Dr Sutton added, "NitroEurope will help us understand the web of interactions in the nitrogen cycle, and how this affects many of the world's environmental problems. Society faces some hard choices in setting priorities to deal with global warming, different forms of pollution and biodiversity loss. NitroEurope will give us better science to help develop strategies to combat these threats."

With an integrated programme that links field measurements and computer modelling, NitroEurope will develop the scientific basis to support European countries and the EU in negotiations under several UN conventions, in particular those on climate change, air pollution and biodiversity.

Further information

Barnaby Smith
CEH Press office
Mob: 0783 216 0960 (preferred) or
Tel: 01491 692439 (2 days a week)

NitroEurope Project leader, Dr Mark Sutton is based at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology research site in Edinburgh, UK. Around 170 scientists and stakeholders will gather for the NitroEurope "Kick-Off" scientific conference next week (13-17 March 2006). This will take place at Grainau, near Garmisch Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps. Others with an interest to attend should contact Joyce Luk at the the NitroEurope secretariat.

Also see CEH's NitroEurope (NEU) website for full event details.

Notes

1. The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK 's leading research organisation for land and freshwater science. Its scientists carry out research to improve our understanding of both the environment and the processes that underlie the Earth's support systems. It is one of the Natural Environment Research Council's research centres.

2. NERC is one of the UK's research councils. It uses a budget of about £350m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains the next generation of independent environmental scientists. It is addressing some of the key questions facing mankind such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development.

3. The NitroEurope consortium consists of 64 research partners from 24 countries.

4. NitroEurope will establish an integrated programme of research that links six main scientific components:

1. Flux Network will establish the first European nitrogen flux monitoring network, including:
   • "Super Sites" - intensive scientific analysis and interactions,
   • "Regional Sites" - extending the long term monitoring capability, and
   • "Inferential Sites" - providing N data at existing carbon flux research sites.
2. Manipulation will establish a new European network that brings together ecosystem manipulation experiments addressing the interactions of nitrogen, land management and global change.
3. Plot-scale modelling will development of ecosystem-level mathematical models of nitrogen and its interactions with the carbon cycle, for forests, grasslands, arable and shrubland/wetland, allowing interactions with climate and management to be addressed.
4. Landscape Analysis will provide the first European assessment of the landscape interactions of nitrogen, linking models that considers management of farms, fields and forests, source and sink areas, plus atmospheric and water dispersion at a fine spatial scale.
5. Integration will develop models to upscale nitrogen and greenhouse gas fluxes to the provide European maps, as well as assess past changes and future scenarios.
6. Verification will analyse independent datasets to provide a check on the European models, delivering estimates of uncertainty and assessing the extent to which the data indicate national compliance with emissions targets under UN conventions.

Press release: 14/06

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