NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Global Carbon Budget 2016Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) 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. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (EFF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) 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 +/- 1(sigma), reflecting the current capacity to characterize the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2006-2015), EFF was 9.3+/-0.5 GtC/yr, ELUC 1.0+/-0.5 GtC/yr,GATM 4.5+/-0.1 GtC/yr, SOCEAN 2.6+/-0.5 GtC/yr, and SLAND 3.1+/-0.9 GtC/yr. For year 2015 alone, the growth in EFF was approximately zero and emissions remained at 9.9+/-0.5 GtC/yr, showing a slowdown in growth of these emissions compared to the average growth of 1.8/yr that took place during 2006-2015.Also, for 2015, ELUC was 1.3+/-0.5 GtC/yr, GATM was 6.3+/-0.2 GtC/yr, SOCEAN was 3.0+/-0.5 GtC/yr, and SLAND was 1.9+/-0.9 GtC/yr. GATM was higher in 2015 compared to the past decade (2006-2015), reflecting a smaller SLAND for that year. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 399.4+/-0.1 ppm averaged over 2015. For 2016, preliminary data indicate the continuation of low growth in EFF 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 corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. In spite of the low growth of EFF in 2016, the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 concentration is expected to be relatively high because of the persistence of the smaller residual terrestrial sink (SLAND) in response to El Nino conditions of 2015-2016. From this projection of EFF and assumed constant ELUC for 2016, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach 565+/-55 GtC (2075+/-205 GtCO2) for 1870-2016, about 75% from EFF and 25% from ELUC. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget compared with previous publications of this data set.
Document ID
20170008485
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Quéré, Corinne Le
(East Anglia Univ. Norwich, United Kingdom)
Andrew, Robbie M.
(Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, Norway)
Canadell, Josep G.
(Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Canberra, Australia)
Sitch, Stephen
(Exeter Univ. United Kingdom)
Korsbakken, Jan Ivar
(Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, Norway)
Peters, Glen P.
(Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, Norway)
Manning, Andrew C.
(East Anglia Univ. Norwich, United Kingdom)
Boden, Thomas A.
(Oak Ridge National Lab. TN, United States)
Tans, Pieter P.
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Boulder, CO, United States)
Houghton, Richard A.
(Woods Hole Research Center Falmouth, MA, United States)
Keeling, Ralph F.
(California State Univ. San Diego, CA, United States)
Alin, Simone
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Seattle, WA, United States)
Andrews, Oliver D.
(East Anglia Univ. Norwich, United Kingdom)
Anthoni, Peter
(Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology Germany)
Barbero, Leticia
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Miami, FL, United States)
Bopp, Laurent
(Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) France)
Chevallier, Frédéric
(Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) France)
Chini, Louise P.
(Maryland Univ. College Park, MD, United States)
Ciais, Philippe
(Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) France)
Currie, Kim
(National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research New Zealand)
Delire, Christine
(Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Toulouse, France)
Doney, Scott C.
(Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. MA, United States)
Friedlingstein, Pierre
(Exeter Univ. United Kingdom)
Gkritzalis, Thanos
(Institute for Promotion and Innovation of Science and Tech. in Flanders Belgium)
Harris, Ian
(East Anglia Univ. Norwich, United Kingdom)
Hauck, Judith
(Alfred-Wegener-Inst. for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven, Germany)
Haverd, Vanessa
(Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Canberra, Australia)
Hoppema, Mario
(Alfred-Wegener-Inst. for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven, Germany)
Goldewijk, Kees Klein
(PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency Bilthoven, Netherlands)
Jain, Atul K.
(Illinois Univ. Urbana, IL, United States)
Kato, Etsushi
(Institute of Applied Energy Tokyo, Japan)
Koertzinger, Arne
(GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany)
Landschuetzer, Peter
(Max-Planck-Inst. fuer Meteorologie Hamburg, Germany)
Lefèvre, Nathalie
(Paris VI Univ. France)
Lenton, Andrew
(Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Hobart, Australia)
Lienert, Sebastian
(Bern Univ. Bern, Switzerland)
Lombardozzi, Danica
(National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder, CO, United States)
Melton, Joe R.
(Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)
Metzl, Nicolas
(Paris VI Univ. France)
Millero, Frank
(Miami Univ. FL, United States)
Monteiro, Pedro M. S.
(Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) Cape Town, South Africa)
Munro, David R.
(Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Nabel, Julia E. M. S.
(Max-Planck-Inst. fuer Meteorologie Hamburg, Germany)
Nakaoka, Shin-ichiro
(National Inst. for Environmental Studies Tsukuba, Japan)
O’Brien, Kevin
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Olsen, Are
(Bergen Univ. Norway)
Omar, Abdirahman M.
(Bergen Univ. Norway)
Ono, Tsuneo
(National Research Inst. of Far Seas Fisheries Shimizu, Japan)
Pierrot, Denis
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Miami, FL, United States)
Poulter, Benjamin
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Roedenbeck, Christian
(Max-Planck Inst. for Biogeochemistry Jena, Germany)
Salisbury, Joe
(New Hampshire Univ. Durham, NH, United States)
Schuster, Ute
(Exeter Univ. United Kingdom)
Schwinger, Joerg
(Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research Bergen, Norway)
Séférian, Roland
(Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Toulouse, France)
Skjelvan, Ingunn
(Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research Bergen, Norway)
Stocker, Benjamin D.
(Imperial Coll. of London London, United Kingdom)
Sutton, Adrienne J.
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Seattle, WA, United States)
Takahashi, Taro
(Columbia Univ. Palisades, NY, United States)
Tian, Hanqin
(Auburn Univ. AL, United States)
Tilbrook, Bronte
(Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Hobart, Australia)
van der Laan-Luijkx, Ingrid T.
(Wageningen Univ. Wageningen, Netherlands)
van der Werf, Guido R.
(Amsterdam Univ. Netherlands)
Viovy, Nicolas
(Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) France)
Walker, Anthony P.
(Oak Ridge National Lab. TN, United States)
Wiltshire, Andrew J.
(MET Office (Meteorological Office) Exeter, United Kingdom)
Zaehle, Soenke
(Max-Planck Inst. for Biogeochemistry Jena, Germany)
Date Acquired
September 5, 2017
Publication Date
November 14, 2016
Publication Information
Publication: Earth System Science Data
Publisher: Earth System Science Data
Volume: 8
Issue: 2
e-ISSN: 1866-3516
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN46180
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available