An improved mechanistic model for ammonia volatilization in Earth system models: Flow of Agricultural Nitrogen version 2 (FANv2)

Abstract

Volatilization of ammonia (NH3) from fertilizers and livestock wastes forms a significant pathway of nitrogen losses in agricultural ecosystems and constitutes the largest source of atmospheric emissions of NH3. This paper describes a major update to the process model FAN (Flow of Agricultural Nitrogen), which evaluates NH3 emissions interactively within an Earth system model; in this work, the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is used. The updated version (FANv2) includes a more detailed treatment of both physical and agricultural processes, which allows the model to differentiate between the volatilization losses from animal housings, manure storage, grazed pastures, and the application of manure and different types of mineral fertilizers. The modeled ammonia emissions are first evaluated at a local scale against experimental data for various types of fertilizers and manure, and they are subsequently run globally to evaluate NH3 emissions for 2010-2015 based on gridded datasets of fertilizer use and livestock populations. Comparison of regional emissions shows that FANv2 agrees with previous inventories for North America and Europe and is within the range of previous inventories for China. However, due to higher NH3 emissions in Africa, India, and Latin America, the global emissions simulated by FANv2 (48 TgN) are 30 %-40 % higher than in the existing inventories.