A uniform, quality controlled Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT)

A well documented, publicly available, global data set of surface ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) parameters has been called for by international groups for nearly two decades. The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) project was initiated by the international marine carbon science community in 2007 with the aim of providing a comprehensive, publicly available, regularly updated, global data set of marine surface CO2, which had been subject to quality control (QC). Many additional CO2 data, not yet made public via the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), were retrieved from data originators, public websites and other data centres. All data were put in a uniform format following a strict protocol. Quality control was carried out according to clearly defined criteria. Regional specialists performed the quality control, using state-of-the-art web-based tools, specially developed for accomplishing this global team effort. SOCAT version 1.5 was made public in September 2011 and holds 6.3 million quality controlled surface CO2 data points from the global oceans and coastal seas, spanning four decades (1968–2007). Three types of data products are available: individual cruise files, a merged complete data set and gridded products. With the rapid expansion of marine CO2 data collection and the importance of quantifying net global oceanic CO2 uptake and its changes, sustained data synthesis and data access are priorities

Global carbon budget 2013

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere 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 a 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, consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production (EFF) are based on energy statistics, 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 (G ATM) 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 for the first time in this budget 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 forced by observed climate, CO2 and land cover change (some including nitrogen-carbon interactions). 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 (2003-2012), EFF was 8.6±0.4 GtC yr-1, ELUC 0.9±0.5 GtC yr-1, GATM 4.3±0.1 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN 2.5±0.5 GtC yr -1, and SLAND 2.8±0.8 GtC yr-1. For year 2012 alone, EFF grew to 9.7±0.5 GtC yr-1, 2.2% above 2011, reflecting a continued growing trend in these emissions, G ATM was 5.1±0.2 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN was 2.9±0.5 GtC yr-1, and assuming an ELUC of 1.0±0.5 GtC yr-1 (based on the 2001-2010 average), S LAND was 2.7±0.9 GtC yr-1. GATM was high in 2012 compared to the 2003-2012 average, almost entirely reflecting the high EFF. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 392.52±0.10 ppm averaged over 2012. We estimate that EFF will increase by 2.1% (1.1- 3.1 %) to 9.9±0.5 GtC in 2013, 61% above emissions in 1990, based on projections of world gross domestic product and recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy.With this projection, cumulative emissions ofCO2 will reach about 535±55 GtC for 1870-2013, about 70% from EFF (390±20 GtC) and 30% from ELUC (145±50 GtC). This paper also documents any changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget from previous budgets (Le Quéré et al., 2013). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP-2013-V2.3)

Global Carbon Budget 2017

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. CO2 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 land-cover change data and bookkeeping models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (G(ATM)) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (S-OCEAN) and terrestrial CO2 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 +/- 1 sigma. For the last decade available (2007-2016), E-FF was 9.4 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), E-LUC 1.3 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) 4.7 +/- 0.1 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN 2.4 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND 3.0 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1), with a budget imbalance B-IM of 0.6 GtC yr(-1) indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For year 2016 alone, the growth in E-FF was approximately zero and emissions remained at 9.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1). Also for 2016, E-LUC was 1.3 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) was 6.1 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.6 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 2.7 +/- 1.0 GtC yr(-1), with a small B-IM of 0.3 GtC. G(ATM) continued to be higher in 2016 compared to the past decade (2007-2016), reflecting in part the high fossil emissions and the small S-LAND consistent with El Nino conditions. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 402.8 +/- 0.1 ppm averaged over 2016. For 2017, preliminary data for the first 6-9 months indicate a renewed growth in E-FF of +2.0% (range of 0.8 to 3.0 %) based on national emissions projections for China, USA, and India, and projections of gross domestic product (GDP) corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new global carbon budget compared with previous publications of this data set (Le Quere et al., 2016, 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). All results presented here can be downloaded fro

Concentrations and ratios of particulate organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in the global ocean

Knowledge of concentrations and elemental ratios of suspended particles are important for understanding many biogeochemical processes in the ocean. These include patterns of phytoplankton nutrient limitation as well as linkages between the cycles of carbon and nitrogen or phosphorus. To further enable studies of ocean biogeochemistry, we here present a global dataset consisting of 100,605 total measurements of particulate organic carbon, nitrogen, or phosphorus analyzed as part of 70 cruises or time-series. The data are globally distributed and represent all major ocean regions as well as different depths in the water column. The global median C:P, N:P, and C:N ratios are 163, 22, and 6.6, respectively, but the data also includes extensive variation between samples from different regions. Thus, this compilation will hopefully assist in a wide range of future studies of ocean elemental ratios