Characterization of Trace Gas Fluxes in and Above Soil

Nitrogen is one of the most important compounds on earth. All organisms need nitrogen to live and grow. Even the majority (78.08%) of the atmosphere (and so the air we breathe) is dinitrogen. Over the last century, human activities have dramatically increased emissions and removal of nitrogen to the global atmosphere by as much as three to five fold. Nitrous oxide is the fourth largest single contributor to positive radiative forcing, and serves as the only long-lived atmospheric tracer of human perturbations of the global nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen oxides belong to the so called indirect greenhouse gases. These indirect greenhouse gases control the abundances of direct greenhouse gases through atmospheric chemistry and contribute on this way to the greenhouse effect. For a better understanding of these feedback mechanisms it is necessary to know the source strength of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide. Thus, the knowledge about exchange processes of nitrogen is of interest and importance for scientist and policy makers, likewise.