Lawns are already under environmental scrutiny owing to the amount of water they consume. But the emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), an important greenhouse gas, might also be a problem.
Diane Pataki at the University of California, Irvine, and her colleagues used fertilized and unfertilized experimental turf plots heated by about 3.5 °C and compared these with unheated controls. They show that warmer and wetter conditions increase N2O emissions from fertilized lawns. As temperatures rise, they argue, turf fertilization will become a significant source of N2O in urban areas.
Warmer conditions also promoted the growth of weeds with C4 metabolism — which is more efficient than C3 at higher temperatures — in the C3 turf, adding to ongoing concerns about how weeds might spread under climate change.
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Ecology: Turf wars. Nature 454, 670 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454670a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/454670a
