Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere -the "global carbon budget" -is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO 2 emissions (E FF ) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land use and land-use change (E LUC ), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO 2 concentration is measured directly and its growth rate (G ATM ) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO 2 sink (S OCEAN ) and terrestrial CO 2 sink (S LAND ) are estimated with global process models constrained by observations. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (B IM ), 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 last decade available (2008-2017), E FF was 9.4 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , E LUC 1.5 ± 0.7 GtC yr −1 , G ATM 4.7 ± 0.02 GtC yr −1 , S OCEAN 2.4 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND 3.2 ± 0.8 GtC yr −1 , with a budget imbalance B IM of 0.5 GtC yr −1 indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For the year 2017 alone, the growth in E FF was about 1.6 % and emissions increased to 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 . Also for 2017, E LUC was 1.4 ± 0.7 GtC yr −1 , G ATM was 4.6 ± 0.2 GtC yr −1 , S OCEAN was 2.5 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND was 3.8 ± 0.8 GtC yr −1 , with a B IM of 0.3 GtC. The global atmospheric CO 2 concentration reached 405.0 ± 0.1 ppm averaged over 2017. For 2018, preliminary data for the first 6-9 months indicate a renewed growth in E FF of +2.7 % (range of 1.8 % to 3.7 %) based on national emission projections for China, the US, the EU, and India and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. The analysis presented here shows that the mean and trend in the five components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period of 1959-2017, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr −1 persist for the representation of semi-decadal variability in CO 2 fluxes. A detailed comparison among individual estimates and the introduction of a broad range of observations show (1) no consensus in the mean and trend in land-use change emissions, (2) a persistent low agreement among the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO 2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) an apparent underestimation of the CO 2 variability by ocean models, originating outside the tropics. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new global c...
We present a new observation-based estimate of the global oceanic carbon dioxide (CO2) sink and its temporal variation on a monthly basis from 1998 through 2011 and at a spatial resolution of 1×1. This sink estimate rests upon a neural network-based mapping of global surface ocean observations of the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) from the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas database. The resulting pCO2 has small biases when evaluated against independent observations in the different ocean basins, but larger randomly distributed differences exist particularly in high latitudes. The seasonal climatology of our neural network-based product agrees overall well with the Takahashi et al. (2009) climatology, although our product produces a stronger seasonal cycle at high latitudes. From our global pCO2 product, we compute a mean net global ocean (excluding the Arctic Ocean and coastal regions) CO2 uptake flux of −1.42 ± 0.53 Pg C yr−1, which is in good agreement with ocean inversion-based estimates. Our data indicate a moderate level of interannual variability in the ocean carbon sink (±0.12 Pg C yr−1, 1𝜎) from 1998 through 2011, mostly originating from the equatorial Pacific Ocean, and associated with the El Nino–Southern Oscillation. Accounting for steady state riverine and Arctic Ocean carbon fluxes our estimate further implies a mean anthropogenic CO2 uptake of −1.99 ± 0.59 Pg C yr−1 over the analysis period. From this estimate plus the most recent estimates for fossil fuel emissions and atmospheric CO2 accumulation, we infer a mean global land sink of −2.82 ± 0.85 Pg C yr−1 over the 1998 through 2011 period with strong interannual variation
Abstract. Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere -the "global carbon budget" -is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics, and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates and consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (E FF ) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (E LUC ), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO 2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (G ATM ) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO 2 sink (S OCEAN ) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in S OCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO 2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO 2 sink (S LAND ) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of independent dynamic global vegetation models. We compare the mean land and ocean fluxes and their variability to estimates from three atmospheric inverse methods for three broad latitude bands. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ , reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015), E FF was 9.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , E LUC 1.0 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , G ATM 4.5 ± 0.1 GtC yr −1 , S OCEAN 2.6 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND 3.1 ± 0.9 GtC yr −1 . For year 2015 alone, the growth in E FF was approximately zero and emissions remained at 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , showing a slowdown in growth of these emissions compared to the average growth of 1.8 % yr −1 that took place during 2006-2015. Also, for 2015, E LUC was 1.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , G ATM was 6.3 ± 0.2 GtC yr −1 , S OCEAN was 3.0 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND was 1.9 ± 0.9 GtC yr −1 . G ATM was higher in 2015 compared to the past decade (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015), reflecting a smaller S LAND for that year. The global atmospheric CO 2 concentration reached 399.4 ± 0.1 ppm averaged over 2015. For 2016, preliminary data indicate the continuation of low growth in E FF with +0.2 % (range of −1.0 to +1.8 %) based on national emissions projections for China and USA, and projections of gross domestic product correc...
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