Warming-induced agricultural nitrous oxide emissions can offset mitigation benefits of fertiliser management

Abstract. Agriculture is the dominant source of anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential. In Switzerland, substantial changes in fertiliser use alongside climatic conditions have occurred over the past four decades, yet the relative contributions of management practices versus environmental change to long-term N₂O emission trends remain incompletely understood. Here, we applied the biogeochemical model DayCent at 1 km resolution across Switzerland, integrating spatially explicit datasets on climate, soil properties and agricultural management, to quantify N₂O emissions for the period 1981–2020 from croplands and grasslands and attribute emission changes to management versus climate drivers. Simulated national N₂O emissions from agricultural soils declined by roughly 5 % from 4.0 to 3.8 kt N yr⁻¹ between the 1980s and 2010s, primarily due to a 25 % reduction in N fertiliser use. Our attribution simulations suggested that under real climate conditions, such a decrease in fertiliser N inputs (–25 %) over the period studied lowered emissions by 15.2 % in croplands and by 12.0 % in grasslands (including permanent meadows and pastures, and high alpine summer pastures). However, compared to a control scenario (in the absence of climate change), rising temperatures over the past 40 years offset these gains, increasing emissions by 5.7 % in croplands and 13.6 % in grasslands. These results show that warming-induced N₂O emissions partially negate mitigation from improved fertiliser management, highlighting the need for integrated agricultural N₂O mitigation strategies that are resilient to future warming.