title: Liu et al. suspect that Zhu et al. (2015) may have underestimated dissolved organic nitrogen (N) but overestimated total particulate N in wet deposition in China.
abstract: In a recent publication in the journal Science of the Total Environment, Zhu et al. (2015) reported the composition, spatial patterns, and factors influencing atmospheric wet nitrogen (N) deposition based on one year's data from 41-monitoring sites in China. We suspect their results may largely underestimate dissolved organic N (DON) but overestimate total particulate N (TPN) in wet deposition due to the uncertainty resulting from the sampling, storage and analysis methods in their study. Our suspicions are based mainly on our experience from earlier measurements and the literature. We therefore suggest that enhanced data quality control on atmospheric N deposition measurements should be taken into account in future studies.
authors.affiliation: College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: liu310@cau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xuejun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry (LAPC), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
authors.forename: Yuepeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Enzai
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Du
keywords: Analytical methods; Bulk deposition; China; Nitrogen; Wet deposition