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What would a global policy to regulate human use of fixed nitrogen look like?

08 December 2011 09:00 - 17:00

Organised by Professor David Fowler CBE FRS, Professor John Pyle FRS, Professor John Raven FRS and Professor Mark Sutton

The natural global cycling of nitrogen through terrestrial and marine ecosystems with important transfers to and from the atmosphere is vital for the Earth’s life support systems. Over the last century human activities have taken control of the source terms in the nitrogen cycle, so that two thirds of the fixed nitrogen circulating globally results directly from human activity through combustion and industrial nitrogen fixation.

Approximately half of the global human population relies on fertilizer nitrogen for food, yet fixed nitrogen in the atmosphere and in terrestrial and marine ecosystems represents a threat to human health, biodiversity and climate.  The atmosphere transfers fixed nitrogen efficiently across international borders, and many of the effects occur far from the source. There are controls over specific components of the nitrogen cycle in some countries, but these are not integrated in a meaningful way and the time will come when a global strategy to manage the benefits and risks effectively may be necessary.  This meeting brings together scientists and environmental policy makers to discuss the issues free from the constraints of political realities.

Programme available to download here (PDF).

This meeting directly followed a broader Discussion meeting on The global nitrogen cycle held at the Royal Society in London from 5 - 6 December 2011.

Biographies and audio recordings are available below.

Organisers

  • Professor David Fowler CBE FRS

    David Fowler trained in environmental physics at the University of Nottingham gaining a BSc in 1972, followed by a PhD in 1976 working on the deposition of SO2 to terrestrial surfaces before moving to the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Edinburgh (later incorporated into the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology), where he spent the next four decades of his career, becoming an authority on atmospheric pollution. He specializes in micrometeorology, the land-atmosphere exchange of trace gases and particles, and the effects of pollutants on vegetation. He has authored around 250 peer-reviewed papers.

    Apart from scientific research, Professor Fowler has also worked on the application of air quality science to public policy in both the UK and Europe. He has been a member of around two dozen scientific committees, including the Royal Society Global Environmental Research Committee and the UK Air Quality Expert Group.

  • Professor John Pyle CBE FRS, University of Cambridge, UK

    John Pyle has made major contributions to our understanding of the chemistry of the stratosphere and the troposphere, both by numerical modelling of the atmosphere and by interpretation of atmospheric measurements. In the 1970s, he developed the first interactive two-dimensional model of stratospheric chemistry and transport. This enabled him to be the first person to demonstrate that ozone depletion by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) varies with latitude. He pioneered the analysis of satellite data for dynamical and chemical studies, for instance by testing chemical steady state relationships there and elucidating the role of the semi-annual oscillation in controlling the abundance of trace species. Since the mid-1990s, he has been in the forefront of the development of three-dimensional models incorporating chemical and transport properties. His group is the largest in Europe and a world leader scientifically. This work has demonstrated unequivocally that chemical destruction of ozone in the Arctic spring has increased during the 1990s and has shed new light on the processes which destroy ozone in mid latitudes.

  • Professor John A Raven FRS, University of Dundee, UK

    Emeritus Professor was Boyd Baxter Professor of Biology at the University of Dundee from 1995 until his official retirement in 2008. He obtained a BA in Botany in 1963 and a PhD in Botany (Plant Biophysics) in 1967 from the University of Cambridge (UK), and moved to the University of Dundee in 1971 where he became a full Professor in 1980. His primary research interests are in the ecophysiology and biogeochemistry of marine and terrestrial primary producers, with related studies on palaeoecology and some forays into astrobiology. A continuing interest is the evolution of photosynthesis in relation to environmental changes..  He has published two monographs (one co-authored) on photosynthesis and other aspects of bioenergetics, and has published over 330 peer-reviewed publications, as well as numerous book chapters; and his associate editor for six journals. His Hirsch index is 63. Professor Raven was elected a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh in 1981 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1990.

  • Professor Mark Sutton, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Edinburgh Research Station), UK

    Professor Mark Sutton is an Environmental Physicist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, UK. He is Director of the UKRI GCRF South Asian Nitrogen Hub and UK Director of the NEWS India-UK Virtual Joint Centre. Professor Sutton is the Vice Chair of the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management of UN Environment, and leads the International Nitrogen Management System (INMS) – a global science policy support process for nitrogen – which is a joint endeavour of UN Environment and the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). He is also co-chair of the UNECE Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen (TFRN).