Chemists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, U.S. discovered an entirely new role that nitric oxide can play in the fight against global warming by way of nitric oxide. The team identified a significant aspect of the nitrification process to which they attribute agricultural emissions as a critical driver of global climate change.

Contemporary biochemical models maintain that the only intermediary resultant of the bacterial conversion of ammonia into dormant nitrite is inorganic hydroxylamine—the ammonia being a cornerstone component of commercial agricultural fertilizer. The Cornell study, however, finds that hydroxylamine converts to another intermediary (nitric oxide) that serves as the precursor to nitrite in normal soil conditions. In the less ideal soil conditions, though, nitric oxide converts to nitrous oxide, the uber-detrimental greenhouse gas. The team published its study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 17.

"We've found a hole in the nitrogen cycle pipeline. As there is nitrous oxide escaping out of the soil into the atmosphere, we now know where the holes are," said study co-author Jonathan Caranto, a Cornell postdoctoral chemistry researcher. "Nitrous oxide is made from nitric oxide—that's the immediate precursor. If you know where the nitric oxide is coming from, you can make a good guess about nitrous oxide being released."

The key to figuring out greenhouse gas solutions is understanding the way the model works. "This is what the research affords: locating new holes to plug. The holes in the pipeline can be sealed. If you don't fully understand the biochemical pathway, you can't know where the pollutants come from," explained co-author Kyle Lancaster, Cornell assistant professor of chemistry. "Otherwise, you are shooting in the dark."

Cornell summarizes: "In 2015, nitrous oxide comprised about 5 percent of atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions, compared with carbon dioxide at 82 percent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nitrous oxide, however, is an ozone-depleting gas with a global warming potential more than 300 times greater than carbon dioxide," according to Caranto. Nitric oxide is also a major contributor to damage of the lowest layer of the ozone as well as a major producer of acid rain.

This new study illustrates nitric oxide coming to fruition within the process of hydroxylamine giving way to nitrite at the time that soil bacteria utilize ammonia as fuel. Scientists used to say that hydroxylamine converts directly into nitrite with no intermediary. "This research could make a huge difference in rearranging predictive nitrogen flux models that scientists use to optimize fertilization practices," Lancaster explained.

Nitric oxide was named Molecule of the Year in 1992 by the journal, Science, because of its broad use value apropos of heart health, and it plays a significant role in medicine. Robert F. Furchgott, a scientist who once worked at Cornell Medical College from 1941 to 1949 before it was renamed Weill Cornell Medicine. He was a Nobel Prize winner in 1998 for physiology or medicine for greatly advancing the scientific community's understanding of nitric oxide.

The creation of nitrite and general greenhouse gases is a detrimental, natural consequence of commercial fertilization process as we know it according to Kyle. "If you can slow down the formation of these species, slow down the oxidation of ammonia in fertilizer, this will raise the 'dwell time' of nitrogen in soil. Agriculture becomes more efficient, more economical and more sustainable."

With this comprehension of the fact that nitric oxide component has the potential to be a boon for the reduction of the cost-to-benefit ratio for farmers as well as other agribusiness producers. Lancaster explained, "This new component to models could lead to better fertilization scheduling."

The study went on to expound, "Nitiric Oxide is an Obligate Bacterial Nitrification Intermediate produced by hydroxylamine oxidoreductase." The findings therein garner support from an Early Career Award granted by the U.S. Department of Energy's science office. What remains groundbreaking about the study is how it illustrates that there could even be any means to control greenhouse gas emissions.

The research presents a unique study opportunity on which many researchers are already, no doubt, following up. There is the significant potential now to develop methods of actually extending the amount of time this earth affords itself by plugging the holes wrought by the considerable, unsightly damage of greenhouse gas emissions thus far. Much of this stems from the revelation that there is, in fact, an intermediary that exists between hydroxylamine and nitrous oxide, which presents the profound opportunity for technological advancements to determine how fertilizers can rob the chemical reactions of their own dangerous yields.

This is particularly significant at a time when many are commonly analyzing the ramifications in the near future that are expected to result from various nations' inabilities to meet climate commitments established during the Paris Climate Accord. Concerns have been assuaged somewhat by remarkable adherence to commitments from massive greenhouse gas contributors like India and China who have made major strides to roll back their footprint on the planet, but other concerns have arisen with the U.S. ostensibly abandoning its own commitments under the Trump Administration despite the Obama Administration having played an architectural role in the Paris agreement.