Marine emissions and trade winds control the atmospheric nitrous oxide in the Galapagos Islands

Cinay, Timur; Young, Dickon; Narváez Jimenez, Nazaret; Vintimilla-Palacios, Cristina; Pila Alonso, Ariel; Krummel, Paul B.; Vizuete, William; Babbin, Andrew R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4703-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4703-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4703-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 9

Research article

|

06 May 2025

Research article |

| 06 May 2025

Marine emissions and trade winds control the atmospheric nitrous oxide in the Galapagos Islands

Timur Cinay, Dickon Young, Nazaret Narváez Jimenez, Cristina Vintimilla-Palacios, Ariel Pila Alonso, Paul B. Krummel, William Vizuete, and Andrew R. Babbin

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4703-2025-supplement

Data sets

Monthly atmospheric nitrous oxide (N₂O) and carbon monoxide (CO) mixing ratio measurements from San Cristobal, Galápagos Islands collected using a cavity ring-down spectrometer Andrew R. Babbin and Timur Cinay https://doi.org/10.26008/1912/bco-dmo.917743.3

Weather Data Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Galapagos Science Center https://weathergsc.usfq.edu.ec/

Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide Dry Air Mole Fractions from the NOAA GML Carbon Cycle Cooperative Global Air Sampling Network, 1997–2023 X. Lan et al. https://doi.org/10.15138/53g1-x417

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

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Short summary

We present the initial 15 months of nitrous oxide measurements from the Galapagos Emissions Monitoring Station. The observed variability in atmospheric mole fractions during this period can be linked to several factors: seasonal variations in trade wind speed and direction across the eastern Pacific, differences in the transport history of air masses sampled, and spatiotemporal heterogeneity in regional marine nitrous oxide emissions from the coastal upwelling systems of Peru and Chile.