Source Apportionment of Atmospheric Ammonia: Sensitivity Test Based on Stable Isotope Analysis in R Language

Ammonia (NH3) is an important precursor of fine particles and nitrogen deposition. It is critical to identify and quantify the sources of NH3 before the implementation of a mitigation strategy. Stable isotope analysis in R (SIAR) has potential with regard to the source apportionment of NH3, but its reliability is closely related to the signatures (δ15N-NH3) of emission sources. Based on SIAR, we found that the agricultural contribution varied significantly with mean δ15N-NH3 values of endmember input. In contrast, both the contributions of fossil fuel and NH3 slip showed low sensitivity against the change of endmember input. Moreover, the agricultural contribution changed by about 20% due to the variations in agricultural endmember mean values. Such a change is five times that due to the variations in endmember standard deviation values. Notably, regardless of the number of input sources tested, "non-agricultural source" was the dominant source of NH3 during hazy days in January 2013 in Beijing. Since various agricultural sources showed large variations in δ15N-NH3, future studies should focus on the endmember signatures of agricultural sources to further reduce the uncertainty in SIAR-based NH3 source apportionment.