Aquatic environments are responsible for teragrams of nitrous oxide (N₂O) production per year, but the precise nature of these fluxes and how they  respond to climate change and anthropogenic activity remain ambiguous. Clumped isotopes––molecules with two or more rare isotopes––of nitrous oxide have high potential to resolve uncertainties in aquatic N₂O emissions by providing unique insights into N2O formation mechanisms, thereby addressing core questions for the future: how will aquatic N₂O emissions evolve under a changing climate and how can they be mitigated? To accomplish this requires integrating tools from currently disconnected areas of research in aquatic and isotope geochemistry, laser spectroscopy, and microbial ecology.