Natural Emission of Nitric Oxide from Agricultural Soil of Corn-field in Eastern North Carolina

Natural emissions of NOx from soils were measured at an agricultural corn field during 3 weeks of growing season in summer (from May to June) 1995. This experiment was conducted in an effort to characterize the role of soil NOx on tropospheric ozone formation in rural atmosphere, and understand the natural NOx emission mechanism with respect to soil parameters. NO fluxes were ranged from 3.1 ng Nm$^{-2}s^{-1}$ to 259.0 ng Nm$^{-2}s^{-1}$, and average NO flux during experimental period was found to be 47.6 $\pm$ 50.6 ng Nm$^{-2}s^{-1}$ with 732 number of data. Diurnal variation of NO flux was shown clearly with daytime maximum and nighttime minimum. NO fluxes were correlated with soil temperature. Exponential soil temperature dependency of NO fluxes was found with 0.0160$^{circ}C^{-1} of k and r^2=0.508$, which agrees well to the value estimated at corn fields in eastern United States. The significant increases of NO fluxes from agricultural soil were detected after applying N fertilizers to soil. THe mechanisms attributed to this are enhanced biological nitrification and denitrification. In the view of rural ozone formation, the roles of natural NO emissions are very essential, especially in NOx - limited region such as southern United States.