Nitrous oxide its concentration has increased 15% since 1750, control of nitrous oxide is considered part of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A 2008 study by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen suggests that the amount of nitrous oxide release attributable to agricultural nitrate fertilizers has been seriously underestimated, most of which presumably, would come under soil and oceanic release in the Environmental Protection Agency data. Nitrous oxide also has been implicated in thinning of the ozone layer. A new study suggests that emission currently is the single most important ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emission and is expected to remain the largest throughout the
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter be a strong indication that biological processes are involved. However, if methane is found in the presence of gases such as sulfur dioxide (), that would be an indication that the methane is a byproduct of geological processes. The nature of the methane source requires measurements of a suite of trace gases in order to characterise potential biochemical and geochemical processes at work. The orbiter has very high sensitivity to (at least) the following molecules and their isotopomers: water (), hydroperoxyl (), nitrogen dioxide (), nitrous oxide (), methane (), acetylene (), ethylene (), ethane (), formaldehyde (), hydrogen cyanide