The 2015-2016 El Nino and the Response of the Carbon Cycle: Findings from NASA's OCO-2 Mission

The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important mode of tropical climate variability on interannual to decadal time scales. Correlations between atmospheric CO2 growth rate and ENSO activity are relatively well known but the magnitude of this correlation, the contribution from tropical marine vs. terrestrial flux components, and the causal mechanisms, are poorly constrained in space and time. The launch of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission in July 2014 was rather timely given the development of strong ENSO conditions over the tropical Pacific Ocean in 2015-2016. In this presentation, we will discuss how the high-density observations from OCO-2 provided us with a novel dataset to resolve the linkages between El Nino and atmospheric CO2. Along with information from in situ observations of CO2 from NOAA's Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) project and atmospheric CO2 from the Scripps CO2 Program, and other remote-sensing missions, we are able to piece together the time dependent response of atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the Tropics. Our findings confirm the hypothesis from studies following the 1997-1998 El Nino event that an early reduction in CO2 outgassing from the tropical Pacific Ocean is later reversed by enhanced net CO2 emissions from the terrestrial biosphere. This implies that a component of the interannual variability (IAV) in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2, which has typically been used to constrain the climate sensitivity of tropical land carbon fluxes, is strongly influenced and modified by ocean fluxes during the early phase of the ENSO event. Our analyses shed further light on the understanding of the marine vs. terrestrial partitioning of tropical carbon fluxes during El Nino events, their relative contributions to the global atmospheric CO2 growth rate, and provide clues about the sensitivity of the carbon cycle to climate forcing on interannual time scales

Global Carbon Budget 2015

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 as well as consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (E-FF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (E-LUC), 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 (S-OCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in S-OCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (S-LAND) 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). 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 characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (20052014), E-FF was 9.0 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) E-LUC was 0.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), GATM was 4.4 +/- 0.1 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.6 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S LAND was 3.0 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1). For the year 2014 alone, E FF grew to 9.8 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), 0.6% above 2013, continuing the growth trend in these emissions, albeit at a slower rate compared to the average growth of 2.2% yr(-1) that took place during 2005-2014. Also, for 2014, E-LUC was 1.1 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) was 3.9 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 4.1 +/- 0.9 GtC yr(-1). G(ATM) was lower in 2014 compared to the past decade (2005-2014), reflecting a larger S-LAND for that year. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 397.15 +/- 0.10 ppm averaged over 2014. For 2015, preliminary data indicate that the growth in E-FF will be near or slightly below zero, with a projection of 0.6 [ range of 1.6 to C 0.5] %, based on national emissions projections for China and the USA, and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the global economy for the rest of the world. From this projection of E-FF and assumed constant E LUC for 2015, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach about 555 +/- 55 GtC (2035 +/- 205 GtCO(2)) for 1870-2015, about 75% from E FF and 25% from E LUC. 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 (Le Quere et al., 2015, 2014, 2013). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi: 10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2015)

Assessing recent trends in high-latitude Southern Hemisphere surface climate

Understanding the causes of recent climatic trends and variability in the high-latitude Southern Hemisphere is hampered by a short instrumental record. Here, we analyse recent atmosphere, surface ocean and sea-ice observations in this region and assess their trends in the context of palaeoclimate records and climate model simulations. Over the 36-year satellite era, significant linear trends in annual mean sea-ice extent, surface temperature and sea-level pressure are superimposed on large interannual to decadal variability. However, most observed trends are not unusual when compared with Antarctic paleoclimate records of the past two centuries. With the exception of the positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode, climate model simulations that include anthropogenic forcing are not compatible with the observed trends. This suggests that natural variability likely overwhelms the forced response in the observations, but the models may not fully represent this natural variability or may overestimate the magnitude of the forced response

Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) gridded data products

As a response to public demand for a well-documented, quality controlled, publically available, global surface ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) data set, the international marine carbon science community developed the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT). The first SOCAT product is a collection of 6.3 million quality controlled surface CO2 data from the global oceans and coastal seas, spanning four decades (1968–2007). The SOCAT gridded data presented here is the second data product to come from the SOCAT project. Recognizing that some groups may have trouble working with millions of measurements, the SOCAT gridded product was generated to provide a robust, regularly spaced CO2 fugacity (fCO2) product with minimal spatial and temporal interpolation, which should be easier to work with for many applications. Gridded SOCAT is rich with information that has not been fully explored yet (e.g., regional differences in the seasonal cycles), but also contains biases and limitations that the user needs to recognize and address (e.g., local influences on values in some coastal regions)

The ECCO-Darwin Data-Assimilative Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Model: Estimates of Seasonal to Multidecadal Surface Ocean pCO(2) and Air-Sea CO2 Flux

Quantifying variability in the ocean carbon sink remains problematic due to sparse observations and spatiotemporal variability in surface ocean pCO(2). To address this challenge, we have updated and improved ECCO-Darwin, a global ocean biogeochemistry model that assimilates both physical and biogeochemical observations. The model consists of an adjoint-based ocean circulation estimate from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) consortium and an ecosystem model developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Darwin Project. In addition to the data-constrained ECCO physics, a Green's function approach is used to optimize the biogeochemistry by adjusting initial conditions and six biogeochemical parameters. Over seasonal to multidecadal timescales (1995-2017), ECCO-Darwin exhibits broad-scale consistency with observed surface ocean pCO(2) and air-sea CO2 flux reconstructions in most biomes, particularly in the subtropical and equatorial regions. The largest differences between CO2 uptake occur in subpolar seasonally stratified biomes, where ECCO-Darwin results in stronger winter uptake. Compared to the Global Carbon Project OBMs, ECCO-Darwin has a time-mean global ocean CO2 sink (2.47 +/- 0.50 Pg C year(-1)) and interannual variability that are more consistent with interpolation-based products. Compared to interpolation-based methods, ECCO-Darwin is less sensitive to sparse and irregularly sampled observations. Thus, ECCO-Darwin provides a basis for identifying and predicting the consequences of natural and anthropogenic perturbations to the ocean carbon cycle, as well as the climate-related sensitivity of marine ecosystems. Our study further highlights the importance of physically consistent, property-conserving reconstructions, as are provided by ECCO, for ocean biogeochemistry studies

Global Carbon Budget 2015

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 as well as consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (E-FF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (E-LUC), 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 (S-OCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in S-OCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (S-LAND) 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). 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 characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (20052014), E-FF was 9.0 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) E-LUC was 0.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), GATM was 4.4 +/- 0.1 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.6 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S LAND was 3.0 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1). For the year 2014 alone, E FF grew to 9.8 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), 0.6% above 2013, continuing the growth trend in these emissions, albeit at a slower rate compared to the average growth of 2.2% yr(-1) that took place during 2005-2014. Also, for 2014, E-LUC was 1.1 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) was 3.9 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 4.1 +/- 0.9 GtC yr(-1). G(ATM) was lower in 2014 compared to the past decade (2005-2014), reflecting a larger S-LAND for that year. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 397.15 +/- 0.10 ppm averaged over 2014. For 2015, preliminary data indicate that the growth in E-FF will be near or slightly below zero, with a projection of 0.6 [ range of 1.6 to C 0.5] %, based on national emissions projections for China and the USA, and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the global economy for the rest of the world. From this projection of E-FF and assumed constant E LUC for 2015, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach about 555 +/- 55 GtC (2035 +/- 205 GtCO(2)) for 1870-2015, about 75% from E FF and 25% from E LUC. 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 (Le Quere et al., 2015, 2014, 2013). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi: 10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2015)

Global carbon budget 2018 [Data Paper]

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 (E-FF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land use and land-use change (E-LUC), 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 (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 (2008-2017), E-FF was 9.4 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), E-LUC 1.5 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) 4.7 +/- 0.02 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN 2.4 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND 3.2 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1), with a budget imbalance B-IM of 0.5 GtC yr(-1) indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For the year 2017 alone, the growth in E-FF was about 1.6 % and emissions increased to 9.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1). Also for 2017, E-LUC was 1.4 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) was 4.6 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.5 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 3.8 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1), with a B-IM of 0.3 GtC. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 405.0 +/- 0.1 ppm averaged over 2017. For 2018, preliminary data for the first 6-9 months indicate a renewed growth in E-FF 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 1 GtC yr(-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 Quere et al., 2018, 2016, 2015a, b, 2014, 2013). All results presented here can be downloaded fro

Global carbon budget 2019 [Data paper]

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 (E-FF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land use change (E-LUC), 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 (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 (2009-2018), E-FF was 9.5 +/- 0.5 GtC yr 1, E-LUC 1.5 +/- 0.7 GtC yr 1, G(ATM) 4.9 +/- 0.02 GtC yr(-1) (2.3 +/- 0.01 ppm yr(-1)), S-OCEAN 2.5 +/- 0.6 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND 3.2 +/- 0.6 GtC yr(-1), with a budget imbalance B-IM of 0.4 GtC yr(-1) indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For the year 2018 alone, the growth in E-FF was about 2.1% and fossil emissions increased to 10.0 +/- 0.5 GtC yr 1, reaching 10 GtC yr(-1) for the first time in history, E-LUC was 1.5 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), for total anthropogenic CO2 emissions of 11.5 +/- 0.9 GtC yr(-1) (42.5 +/- 3.3 GtCO(2)). Also for 2018, G(ATM) was 5.1 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1) (2.4 +/- 0.1 ppm yr(-1)), S-OCEAN was 2.6 +/- 0.6 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 3.5 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), with a B-IM of 0.3 GtC. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 407.38 +/- 0.1 ppm averaged over 2018. For 2019, preliminary data for the first 6-10 months indicate a reduced growth in E-FF of +0.6% (range of -0.2% to 1.5 %) based on national emissions projections for China, the USA, 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. Overall, the mean and trend in the five components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959-2018, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr(-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 shows (1) no consensus in the mean and trend in land use change emissions over the last decade, (2) a persistent low agreement between 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 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 of the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this data set (Le Quere et al., 2018a, b, 2016, 2015a, b, 2014, 2013)

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