Summary
This comprehensive assessment of the global carbon budget provides an integrated quantification of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and their partitioning among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere for 2006–2015. The work synthesises disparate data streams—including energy and industrial statistics, land-cover change observations, fire activity records, and ocean and vegetation models—to characterise all major budget components with explicit uncertainty estimates. The study supports climate policy development and climate projection by documenting methodology, data limitations, and consistency checks across independent approaches.
UK applicability
The global carbon budget framework and methodologies described have direct relevance to UK greenhouse gas accounting and carbon sequestration policy, particularly regarding land-use change emissions and terrestrial carbon sink assessment. UK-specific carbon budgets and Climate Change Act targets depend on accurate quantification of the terrestrial and ocean sinks documented here, though the paper does not disaggregate regional or sectoral contributions.
Key measures
Annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (EFF); emissions from land-use change (ELUC); global atmospheric CO2 concentration growth (GATM); mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN); global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND); uncertainties reported as ±1σ
Outcomes reported
The study quantified all major components of the global carbon budget for 2006–2015, including CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry, land-use change, atmospheric concentration growth, and ocean and terrestrial carbon sinks with associated uncertainties. The work synthesised data from energy statistics, cement production, land-cover change, fire activity, ocean observations, and dynamic global vegetation models to provide a comprehensive annual accounting of global anthropogenic CO2 redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere.
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