Comment on "Legacy nitrogen may prevent achievement of water quality goals in the Gulf of Mexico"

Tristan C Ballard; Anna M Michalak; Gregory F McIsaac; Nancy N Rabalais; R Eugene Turner

doi:10.1126/science.aau8401

Comment on "Legacy nitrogen may prevent achievement of water quality goals in the Gulf of Mexico"

Science. 2019 Aug 23;365(6455):eaau8401. doi: 10.1126/science.aau8401.

Authors

Tristan C Ballard^{1

2}, Anna M Michalak^{3

2}, Gregory F McIsaac⁴, Nancy N Rabalais⁵, R Eugene Turner⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. tballard@stanford.edu.
² Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
³ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁴ Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
⁵ Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.

PMID: 31439764
DOI: 10.1126/science.aau8401

Abstract

Van Meter et al (Reports, 27 April 2018, p. 427) warn that achieving nitrogen reduction goals in the Gulf of Mexico will take decades as a result of legacy nitrogen effects. We discuss limitations of the modeling approach and demonstrate that legacy effects ranging from a few years to decades are equally consistent with observations. The presented time scales for system recovery are therefore highly uncertain.

Publication types

Comment