Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide (N2O)

Monthly Averages & Trends of Atmospheric N2O Between 2001-2026

Between 2001-2026, the concentration of nitrous oxide (N2O) in Earth's atmosphere has increased from an average of 316.3 PPM to 339.86 PPM (parts per million), a 7.45% increase during a 25 year time span.

Common Questions

What is Nitrous Oxide (N2O)?

Nitrous oxide commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, nitro, or nos, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula N2O.

What is Nitrous Oxide (N2O) used for?

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is clinically used as a safe anesthetic (dentistry, ambulance, childbirth) and medically applied due to its anti-anxiety effect.

What does PPB mean?

PPB is an abbreviation for "parts per billion" and it also can be expressed as micrograms per liter (ug/L). This measurement is the mass of a chemical or contaminate per unit volume of water. Seeing PPB or ug/L on a lab report means the same thing.

One PPB is one part in 1 billion, and some real world analogies that describe PPB would be:

• One sheet in a roll of toilet paper stretching from New York to London.
• One second in nearly 32 years.
• One pinch of salt in 10 tons of potato chips.

Data Information

Uncertainties in the global monthly means are estimated using two terms: The first is a bootstrap (resampling) method that varies the sites in our network. Each pseudo-network contains the same number of sites as our actual NOAA ESRL cooperative global air sampling network, but some are repeated and some are excluded. The second term is a Monte Carlo method that randomly modifies the data to account for measurement uncertainty. In both cases, 100 globally-averaged time series are created. Standard deviations of the monthly means are calculated, and the two terms (network and analytical) are taken in quadrature to give the reported uncertainties. A default value (-9.9) indicates the uncertainty has not yet been calculated for that month. Please see Dlugokencky et al., 1994, JGR, vol. 99, 17021-17043, for a complete discussion.

N2O expressed as a mole fraction in dry air, nanomol/mol, abbreviated as PBB.

NOTE: In general, the data presented for the last year are subject to change, depending on recalibration of the reference gas mixtures used, and other quality control procedures. Occasionally, earlier years may also change for the same reasons. Usually these changes are minor.

Data Source

NOAA / Global Monitoring Laboratory (Earth System Research Laboratories)

Data Gathering Locations

We make use of the global mean of atomospheric CO2 which is gathered by four observatories across the world.

Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. (19.5364° N, 155.5765° W)