title: Uncertainty and perspectives in studies of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in China: A response to Liu et al. (2015).
abstract: In this paper, we have formally responded to the speculation in "Liu et al. suspect that Zhu et al. (2015) may have underestimated dissolved organic N but overestimated total particulate N in wet deposition in China" by Liu et al. (2015). Here, we first discussed the uncertainty and plausible reasons of atmospheric deposition in China, which have been reported in different studies. We disagree with their interpretation on some points. Firstly, the difficulties in quality control from sampling to analyzing are common to all studies regarding atmospheric deposition, including the studies cited by Liu et al. (2015). More importantly, their discussion did not fully consider the apparent influence of different scaling-up methods (from an observation site scale to a national scale) on estimations of atmospheric N deposition in China. Furthermore, we provided the optimal approaches to resolve these challenges discussed in order to promote the related studies of atmospheric N deposition in China in the future.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: henp@igsnrr.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Nianpeng
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Jianxing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Qiufeng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Composition; Influencing factors; Nitrogen; Spatial pattern; Wet deposition