Global Carbon Budget 2017

Le Quéré, C., Andrew, R. M., Friedlingstein, P., Sitch, S., Pongratz, J., Manning, A. C., Korsbakken, J. I., Peters, G. P., et al. (2018). Global Carbon Budget 2017. Earth System Science Data Discussions 10 (1) 405-448. 10.5194/essd-10-405-2018.

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Project: Effects of phosphorus limitations on Life, Earth system and Society (IMBALANCE-P, FP7 610028)

Abstract

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistributionamong the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better un-derstand 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 budgetand their uncertainties. CO2emissions from fossil fuels and industry (EFF) are based on energy statistics andcement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, arebased on land-cover change data and bookkeeping models. The global atmospheric CO2concentration is mea-sured directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The oceanCO2sink (SOCEAN) and terrestrial CO2sink (SLAND) are estimated with global process models constrained byobservations. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (BIM), the difference between the estimated total emis-sions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfectdata and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as±1σ. For the lastdecade available (2007–2016),EFFwas 9.4±0.5 GtC yr−1,ELUC1.3±0.7 GtC yr−1,GATM4.7±0.1 GtC yr−1,SOCEAN2.4±0.5 GtC yr−1, andSLAND3.0±0.8 GtC yr−1, with a budget imbalanceBIMof 0.6 GtC yr−1indi-cating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For year 2016 alone, the growth inEFFwas ap-proximately zero and emissions remained at 9.9±0.5 GtC yr−1. Also for 2016,ELUCwas 1.3±0.7 GtC yr−1,GATMwas 6.1±0.2 GtC yr−1,SOCEANwas 2.6±0.5 GtC yr−1, andSLANDwas 2.7±1.0 GtC yr−1, with a smallBIMof−0.3 GtC.GATMcontinued to be higher in 2016 compared to the past decade (2007–2016), reflectingin part the high fossil emissions and the smallSLANDconsistent with El Niño conditions. The global atmo-spheric CO2concentration reached 402.8±0.1 ppm averaged over 2016. For 2017, preliminary data for the first6–9 months indicate a renewed growth inEFFof+2.0 % (range of 0.8 to 3.0 %) based on national emissionsprojections for China, USA, and India, and projections of gross domestic product (GDP) corrected for recentchanges in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. This living data update documentschanges in the methods and data sets used in this new global carbon budget compared with previous publicationsof this data set (Le Quéré et al., 2016, 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). All results presented here can be downloaded fromhttps://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2017 (GCP, 2017).

Item Type: Article
Research Programs: Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM)
Depositing User: Luke Kirwan
Date Deposited: 12 Mar 2018 09:39
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2021 17:30
URI: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/15161

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