Global Carbon Budget 2018

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Abstract

Abstract. Accurate 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 the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land use and 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) and terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) are estimated with global process models constrained by observations. 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 last decade available (2008–2017), EFF was 9.4±0.5GtCyr−1, ELUC 1.5±0.7GtCyr−1, GATM 4.7±0.02GtCyr−1, SOCEAN 2.4±0.5GtCyr−1, and SLAND 3.2±0.8GtCyr−1, with a budget imbalance BIM of 0.5GtCyr−1 indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For the year 2017 alone, the growth in EFF was about 1.6% and emissions increased to 9.9±0.5GtCyr−1. Also for 2017, ELUC was 1.4±0.7GtCyr−1, GATM was 4.6±0.2GtCyr−1, SOCEAN was 2.5±0.5GtCyr−1, and SLAND was 3.8±0.8GtCyr−1, with a BIM of 0.3GtC. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 405.0±0.1ppm averaged over 2017. For 2018, preliminary data for the first 6–9 months indicate a renewed growth in EFF 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 1GtCyr−1 persist for the representation of semi-decadal variability in CO2 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 CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) an apparent underestimation of the CO2 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 carbon budget and the progress in understanding the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this data set (Le Quéré et al., 2018, 2016, 2015a, b, 2014, 2013). All results presented here can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2018.

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Most cited references 123

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G. Krinner, Nicolas Viovy, Nathalie de Noblet-Ducoudré … (2005)

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Recent decline in the global land evapotranspiration trend due to limited moisture supply.

Martin Jung, Markus Reichstein, Philippe Ciais … (2010)

More than half of the solar energy absorbed by land surfaces is currently used to evaporate water. Climate change is expected to intensify the hydrological cycle and to alter evapotranspiration, with implications for ecosystem services and feedback to regional and global climate. Evapotranspiration changes may already be under way, but direct observational constraints are lacking at the global scale. Until such evidence is available, changes in the water cycle on land−a key diagnostic criterion of the effects of climate change and variability−remain uncertain. Here we provide a data-driven estimate of global land evapotranspiration from 1982 to 2008, compiled using a global monitoring network, meteorological and remote-sensing observations, and a machine-learning algorithm. In addition, we have assessed evapotranspiration variations over the same time period using an ensemble of process-based land-surface models. Our results suggest that global annual evapotranspiration increased on average by 7.1 ± 1.0 millimetres per year per decade from 1982 to 1997. After that, coincident with the last major El Niño event in 1998, the global evapotranspiration increase seems to have ceased until 2008. This change was driven primarily by moisture limitation in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Africa and Australia. In these regions, microwave satellite observations indicate that soil moisture decreased from 1998 to 2008. Hence, increasing soil-moisture limitations on evapotranspiration largely explain the recent decline of the global land-evapotranspiration trend. Whether the changing behaviour of evapotranspiration is representative of natural climate variability or reflects a more permanent reorganization of the land water cycle is a key question for earth system science.

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Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions.

Steven Davis, Ken Caldeira (2010)

CO(2) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the primary cause of global warming. Much attention has been focused on the CO(2) directly emitted by each country, but relatively little attention has been paid to the amount of emissions associated with the consumption of goods and services in each country. Consumption-based accounting of CO(2) emissions differs from traditional, production-based inventories because of imports and exports of goods and services that, either directly or indirectly, involve CO(2) emissions. Here, using the latest available data, we present a global consumption-based CO(2) emissions inventory and calculations of associated consumption-based energy and carbon intensities. We find that, in 2004, 23% of global CO(2) emissions, or 6.2 gigatonnes CO(2), were traded internationally, primarily as exports from China and other emerging markets to consumers in developed countries. In some wealthy countries, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, the United Kingdom, and France, >30% of consumption-based emissions were imported, with net imports to many Europeans of >4 tons CO(2) per person in 2004. Net import of emissions to the United States in the same year was somewhat less: 10.8% of total consumption-based emissions and 2.4 tons CO(2) per person. In contrast, 22.5% of the emissions produced in China in 2004 were exported, on net, to consumers elsewhere. Consumption-based accounting of CO(2) emissions demonstrates the potential for international carbon leakage. Sharing responsibility for emissions among producers and consumers could facilitate international agreement on global climate policy that is now hindered by concerns over the regional and historical inequity of emissions.