Source-based and full-scale anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions from China's 339 cities for 2010-2024

Nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 273 times greater than CO2, has risen steadily in atmospheric concentration, posing a growing threat to climate targets under the Paris Agreement. China, as the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic N2O, has declared that the new round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) climate commitments and announced the action plan of N2O emission control in the industrial sector. However, existing N2O inventories remain fragmented—limited in scope, spatial resolution, and timeliness—due to reliance on aggregated data and inconsistent accounting boundaries. Here, we present a source-based, full-scale, and monthly N2O emission inventory for China’s all 339 cities from 2010 to 2024, building on the China High Resolution Emission Database (CHRED 3.0). This inventory integrates source-level data from over 1.5 million industrial facilities, spanning major emission sources including energy use, industrial production, agriculture, and waste. Our approach ensures methodological consistency and captures monthly, city-level dynamics of N2O emissions. Compared with existing inventories, the dataset improves spatial and temporal resolution and provides a more detailed representation of emission patterns. This dataset offers a valuable resource for understanding N₂O emission dynamics and supporting mitigation policy design.