![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/image.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBased on the new research it appears that “rate of deposition of reactive nitrogen (nitrogen oxides from fossil fuel burning, and ammonia compounds from fertilizer use) from the atmosphere to the open ocean has more than doubled globally over the last 100 years”.<\/p>\n
At this current rate of anthropogenic deposition, the human-related effect is equal to roughly half of global ocean nitrogen fixation — which is the “natural process” by which atmospheric nitrogen gas is made available to organisms.<\/p>\n
The work — done in conjunction with researchers in Korea, Switzerland, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — was done as an attempt to assess changes in nitrate concentration between the 1960s and 2000s, across the whole of the North Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
This analysis has revealed that oceanic nitrate concentration has increased considerably over the last 30 or so years, across the open surface waters of the North Pacific — as a result of increased deposition of nitrogen from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
“This is a sobering result, one that I would not have predicted,” stated David Karl, Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii. “The North Pacific is so vast it is hard to imagine that humans could impact the natural nitrogen cycle.”<\/p>\n