N.F.Caraco and J.J.Cole.
Nitrous oxide is an important greenhouse gas which is increasing in the atmosphere.
Rivers are environments which should be highly conducive to nitrous oxide production and receive a considerable amount of nitrogen from fertlizer application, atmospheric deposition and sewage. A recent model suggests that rivers, driven by these N loads, may be major sources of anthropogenic nitrous oxide. We examined these predictions using new measurements from the Hudson River and data from 5 other rivers with varying nitrate concentrations and N loads. We find that nitrous oxide flux from rivers relates poorly to N loads often being far lower than predicted from N load based models. Nitrous oxide originates in part from denitrification and additional constraints on this process could lower its production.