Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas. In a new study published in the journal Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, researchers at the University of Minnesota and an international group of universities and laboratories have investigated nitrous oxide emissions from the soil during non-growing seasons. They found that soil freezing and thawing create these emissions, which are greater during non-growing seasons than growing seasons. They have developed a model that accurately estimates the emissions down to the county scale in the U.S. Corn Belt. A story about this study appears as a Research Brief on the U of M News site: Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Corn Belt Spike When Soils Freeze and Thaw.
MSI PIs Zhenong Jin (assistant professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering) and Timothy Griffis (professor, Soil, Water, and Climate) are co-authors on the study. Graduate student Yufeng Yang, who uses MSI as a member of the Jin group, is the lead author, and fellow Jin group members Licheng Liu and Taegon Kim are co-authors.
Professor Jin uses MSI on a range of projects that integrate computational modeling, remote sensing, and machine learning for agriculture sustainability. Professor Griffis uses MSI in studies of the biophysical processes and feedback mechanisms that control heat and mass transfer at the Earth-atmosphere interface.