The Human Impacts Database

A collection of useful numbers for quantifying the impacts of the human presence on Earth.

Total anthropogenic N2O emissions

Atmospheric & Biogeochemical CyclesGreenhouse Gases

This quantity comes from a time series measurement and the most recent value (2018) is reported.

Value:

This is equivalent to...

9.2 ± 8.0 Mt N2O / yr

9.2 ± 8.0 Tg N2O / yr
HuID: 92891
Relevant Year(s): 2018
Summary: Anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from the EDGARv6.0 database, obtained used a bottom-up and IPCC-compliant accounting approach based on international statistics and emission factors. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and currently the third largest contributor of anthropogenic radiative forcing after carbon dioxide and methane. Although reactive like methane, its lifetime in the atmosphere is about 100 years, 10 times more that that of methane.
Method: The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides independent estimates of the global anthropogenic emissions and emission trends, based on publicly available statistics. This scientific independent emission inventory is characterized by a coherent world historical trend from 1970 to year x-3, including emissions of all greenhouse gases, air pollutants and aerosols. Data are presented for all countries, with emissions provided per main source category, and spatially allocated on a 0.1x0.1 grid over the globe. The uncertainty is taken from EDGARv4.3.2, Table 2 of Janssens-Maenhout et al (2019), assuming no uncertainty correlations. The relative uncertainty in the original source is only given for years 1990-2012. Here, it is extended backwards and forwards in time assuming it is constant and equal to the uncertainty of 1990 (for prior years) and 2012 (for 2013-2018). Thus, the provided uncertainty is likely an overestimate for the most recent period and an underestimate for 1970-1989. The uncertainty reported represents two standard deviations from the mean (95% confidence interval).
Source: European Commission, Joint Research Centre EDGAR v6.0 Greenhouse Gas Emissions. (2021)
Dataset: Time series of anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions (N2O_emissions_processed.csv)
global resolution
regional resolution
Trend:
Original Data License: CC-BY 4.0
Added By: ilopezgo