External Organic Nitrogen Supply by Atmospheric Aerosols is Important Over the Northwest Pacific Ocean

Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition is a major source of external nitrogen to the open ocean, which is especially important for maintaining primary productivity in oligotrophic regions. Aerosol organic nitrogen (AON) is an important fraction of atmospheric N deposition. However, it is unclear how much of the AON is of external origin or internally recycled from the ocean, which hinders the estimation of the net primary production driven by aerosol N input. Here, we quantified AON over the Northwest Pacific Ocean using a newly developed Aerosol Nitrogen Analyzer. The external AON mass was equal to 54% of the inorganic nitrogen in nitrate aerosols. The results highlight that the contribution of AON cannot be neglected when estimating the influence of N deposition on marine biological production in oligotrophic oceanic regions.

Reference: Wang, Y., Jiang, Y., Yu, X., et al. (2026). External organic nitrogen supply by atmospheric aerosols is important over the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Geophys. Res. Lett., 53(11), e2026GL123219. https://doi.org/10.1029/2026GL123219