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We present an estimate of net CO2 exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere across North America for every week in the period 2000 through 2005. This estimate is derived from a set of 28,000 CO2 mole fraction observations in the global atmosphere that are fed into a state-of-the-art data assimilation system for CO2 called CarbonTracker. By design, the surface fluxes produced in CarbonTracker are consistent with the recent history of CO2 in the atmosphere and provide constraints on the net carbon flux independent from national inventories derived from accounting efforts. We find the North American terrestrial biosphere to have absorbed ؊0. carbon cycle ͉ greenhouse gases ͉ data assimilation ͉ biogeochemistry ͉ atmospheric composition

Methane emissions from the U.S. oil and natural gas supply chain were estimated by using ground-based, facility-scale measurements and validated with aircraft observations in areas accounting for ~30% of U.S. gas production. When scaled up nationally, our facility-based estimate of 2015 supply chain emissions is 13 ± 2 teragrams per year, equivalent to 2.3% of gross U.S. gas production. This value is ~60% higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inventory estimate, likely because existing inventory methods miss emissions released during abnormal operating conditions. Methane emissions of this magnitude, per unit of natural gas consumed, produce radiative forcing over a 20-year time horizon comparable to the CO from natural gas combustion. Substantial emission reductions are feasible through rapid detection of the root causes of high emissions and deployment of less failure-prone systems.

Measurements of midday vertical atmospheric CO2 distributions reveal annual-mean vertical CO2 gradients that are inconsistent with atmospheric models that estimate a large transfer of terrestrial carbon from tropical to northern latitudes. The three models that most closely reproduce the observed annual-mean vertical CO2 gradients estimate weaker northern uptake of -1.5 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year(-1)) and weaker tropical emission of +0.1 Pg C year(-1) compared with previous consensus estimates of -2.4 and +1.8 Pg C year(-1), respectively. This suggests that northern terrestrial uptake of industrial CO2 emissions plays a smaller role than previously thought and that, after subtracting land-use emissions, tropical ecosystems may currently be strong sinks for CO2.

[1] The 14 CO 2 released into the stratosphere during bomb testing in the early 1960s provides a global constraint on air-sea gas exchange of soluble atmospheric gases like CO 2 . Using the most complete database of dissolved inorganic radiocarbon, DI 14 C, available to date and a suite of ocean general circulation models in an inverse mode we recalculate the ocean inventory of bomb-produced DI 14 C in the global ocean and confirm that there is a 25% decrease from previous estimates using older DI 14 C data sets. Additionally, we find a 33% lower globally averaged gas transfer velocity for CO 2 compared to previous estimates (Wanninkhof, 1992) using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 1954-2000 where the global mean winds are 6.9 m s À1 . Unlike some earlier ocean radiocarbon studies, the implied gas transfer velocity finally closes the gap between small-scale deliberate tracer studies and global-scale estimates. Additionally, the total inventory of bomb-produced radiocarbon in the ocean is now in agreement with global budgets based on radiocarbon measurements made in the stratosphere and troposphere. Using the implied relationship between wind speed and gas transfer velocity k s = 0.27hu 10 2 i(Sc/660) À0.5 and standard partial pressure difference climatology of CO 2 we obtain an net air-sea flux estimate of 1.3 ± 0.5 PgCyr À1 for 1995. After accounting for the carbon transferred from rivers to the deep ocean, our estimate of oceanic uptake (1.8 ± 0.5 PgCyr À1 ) compares well with estimates based on ocean inventories, ocean transport inversions using ocean concentration data, and model simulations.

The past decade has seen a substantial amount of research on air-sea gas exchange and its environmental controls. These studies have significantly advanced the understanding of processes that control gas transfer, led to higher quality field measurements, and improved estimates of the flux of climate-relevant gases between the ocean and atmosphere. This review discusses the fundamental principles of air-sea gas transfer and recent developments in gas transfer theory, parameterizations, and measurement techniques in the context of the exchange of carbon dioxide. However, much of this discussion is applicable to any sparingly soluble, non-reactive gas. We show how the use of global variables of environmental forcing that have recently become available and gas exchange relationships that incorporate the main forcing factors will lead to improved estimates of global and regional air-sea gas fluxes based on better fundamental physical, chemical, and biological foundations.

Abstract. Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesize datasets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based data products. The terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (BIM), the difference between the estimated total emissions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfect data and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ. For the first time, an approach is shown to reconcile the difference in our ELUC estimate with the one from national greenhouse gas inventories, supporting the assessment of collective countries' climate progress. For the year 2020, EFOS declined by 5.4 % relative to 2019, with fossil emissions at 9.5 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 (9.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 when the cement carbonation sink is included), and ELUC was 0.9 ± 0.7 GtC yr−1, for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission of 10.2 ± 0.8 GtC yr−1 (37.4 ± 2.9 GtCO2). Also, for 2020, GATM was 5.0 ± 0.2 GtC yr−1 (2.4 ± 0.1 ppm yr−1), SOCEAN was 3.0 ± 0.4 GtC yr−1, and SLAND was 2.9 ± 1 GtC yr−1, with a BIM of −0.8 GtC yr−1. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2020 reached 412.45 ± 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2021 suggest a rebound in EFOS relative to 2020 of +4.8 % (4.2 % to 5.4 %) globally. Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2020, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr−1 persist for the representation of annual to semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use changes emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the strength of the ocean sink over the last decade. This living data update documents changes in the methods and datasets used in this new global carbon budget and the progress in understanding of the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this dataset (Friedlingstein et al., 2020, 2019; Le Quéré et al., 2018b, a, 2016, 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/gcp-2021 (Friedlingstein et al., 2021).