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Cited by 2,544Atmospheric and Environmental Gas DynamicsClimate variability and modelsClimate Change and Environmental Impact

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Global Carbon Budget 2020

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Friedlingstein, Pierre, O'Sullivan, Michael, Jones, Matthew W., Andrew, Robbie M., Hauck, Judith, Olsen, Are, Peters, Glen P., Peters, Wouter, Pongratz, Julia, Sitch, Stephen, Le Quéré, Corinne, Canadell, Josep G., Ciais, Philippe, Jackson, Robert B., Alin, Simone, Aragão, Luiz E. O. C., Arneth, Almut, Arora, Vivek, Bates, Nicholas R., Becker, Meike, Benoit-Cattin, Alice, Bittig, Henry C., Bopp, Laurent, Bultan, Selma, Chandra, Naveen, Chevallier, Frédéric, Chini, Louise P., Evans, Wiley, Florentie, Liesbeth, Forster, Piers M., Gasser, Thomas, Gehlen, Marion, Gilfillan, Dennis, Gkritzalis, Thanos, Gregor, Luke, Gruber, Nicolas, Harris, Ian, Hartung, Kerstin, Haverd, Vanessa, Houghton, Richard A., Ilyina, Tatiana, Jain, Atul K., Joetzjer, Emilie, Kadono, Koji, Kato, Etsushi, Kitidis, Vassilis, Korsbakken, Jan Ivar, Landschützer, Peter, Lefèvre, Nathalie, Lenton, Andrew, Lienert, Sebastian, Liu, Zhu, Lombardozzi, Danica, Marland, Gregg, Metzl, Nicolas, Munro, David R., Nabel, Julia E. M. S., Nakaoka, Shin-Ichiro, Niwa, Yosuke, O'Brien, Kevin, Ono, Tsuneo, Palmer, Paul I., Pierrot, Denis, Poulter, Benjamin, Resplandy, Laure, Robertson, Eddy, Rödenbeck, Christian, Schwinger, Jörg, Séférian, Roland, Skjelvan, Ingunn, Smith, Adam J. P., Sutton, Adrienne J., Tanhua, Toste, Tans, Pieter P., Tian, Hanqin, Tilbrook, Bronte, van der Werf, Guido, Vuichard, Nicolas, Walker, Anthony P., Wanninkhof, Rik, Watson, Andrew J., Willis, David, Wiltshire, Andrew J., Yuan, Wenping, Yue, Xu, Zaehle, Sönke·2020·Earth System Science Data
DOI 10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020

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Abstract

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate – 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 and synthesize data sets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO 2 emissions ( E FOS ) 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 CO 2 concentration is measured directly and its growth rate ( G ATM ) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO 2 sink ( S OCEAN ) and terrestrial CO 2 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 σ . For the last decade available (2010–2019), E FOS was 9.6 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 excluding the cement carbonation sink (9.4 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 when the cement carbonation sink is included), and E LUC was 1.6 ± 0.7 GtC yr −1 . For the same decade, G ATM was 5.1 ± 0.02 GtC yr −1 (2.4 ± 0.01 ppm yr −1 ), S OCEAN 2.5 ± 0.6 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND 3.4 ± 0.9 GtC yr −1 , with a budget imbalance B IM of −0.1 GtC yr −1 indicating a near balance between estimated sources and sinks over the last decade. For the year 2019 alone, the growth in E FOS was only about 0.1 % with fossil emissions increasing to 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 excluding the cement carbonation sink (9.7 ± 0.5 GtC yr −1 when cement carbonation sink is included), and E LUC was 1.8 ± 0.7 GtC yr −1 , for total anthropogenic CO 2 emissions of 11.5 ± 0.9 GtC yr −1 (42.2 ± 3.3 GtCO 2 ). Also for 2019, G ATM was 5.4 ± 0.2 GtC yr −1 (2.5 ± 0.1 ppm yr −1 ), S OCEAN was 2.6 ± 0.6 GtC yr −1 , and S LAND was 3.1 ± 1.2 GtC yr −1 , with a B IM of 0.3 GtC. The global atmospheric CO 2 concentration reached 409.85 ± 0.1 ppm averaged over 2019. Preliminary data for 2020, accounting for the COVID-19-induced changes in emissions, suggest a decrease in E FOS relative to 2019 of about −7 % (median estimate) based on individual estimates from four studies of −6 %, −7 %, −7 % (−3 % to −11 %), and −13 %. Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2019, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr −1 persist for the representation of semi-decadal variability in CO 2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from diverse approaches and 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 CO 2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) an apparent discrepancy between the different methods for the ocean sink outside the tropics, particularly in the Southern Ocean. 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 (Friedlingstein et al., 2019; Le Quéré et al., 2018b, a, 2016, 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/gcp-2020 (Friedlingstein et al., 2020).

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Metadata

Authors
Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Hauck, J., Olsen, A., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Sitch, S., Le Quéré, C., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Alin, S., Aragão, L. E. O. C., Arneth, A., Arora, V., Bates, N. R., Becker, M., Benoit-Cattin, A., Bittig, H. C., Bopp, L., Bultan, S., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Evans, W., Florentie, L., Forster, P. M., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gilfillan, D., Gkritzalis, T., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Harris, I., Hartung, K., Haverd, V., Houghton, R. A., Ilyina, T., Jain, A. K., Joetzjer, E., Kadono, K., Kato, E., Kitidis, V., Korsbakken, J. I., Landschützer, P., Lefèvre, N., Lenton, A., Lienert, S., Liu, Z., Lombardozzi, D., Marland, G., Metzl, N., Munro, D. R., Nabel, J. E. M. S., Nakaoka, S.-I., Niwa, Y., O'Brien, K., Ono, T., Palmer, P. I., Pierrot, D., Poulter, B., Resplandy, L., Robertson, E., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Séférian, R., Skjelvan, I., Smith, A. J. P., Sutton, A. J., Tanhua, T., Tans, P. P., Tian, H., Tilbrook, B., van der Werf, G., Vuichard, N., Walker, A. P., Wanninkhof, R., Watson, A. J., Willis, D., Wiltshire, A. J., Yuan, W., Yue, X., & Zaehle, S.
Affiliations
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • University of East Anglia (GB)
  • CICERO Center for International Climate Research (NO)
  • Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (DE)
  • Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (NO)
  • University of Groningen (NL)
  • Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (DE)
  • University of Exeter (GB)
  • CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (AU)
  • Stanford University (US)
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US)
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE)
  • Environment and Climate Change Canada (CA)
  • Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BM)
  • Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (IS)
  • Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (DE)
  • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
  • Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JP)
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Hakai Institute (CA)
  • Wageningen University & Research (NL)
  • University of Leeds (GB)
  • International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
  • Appalachian State University (US)
  • Flanders Marine Institute (BE)
  • ETH Zurich (CH)
  • Woodwell Climate Research Center (US)
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
  • Japan Meteorological Agency (JP)
  • Institute of Applied Energy (JP)
  • Plymouth Marine Laboratory (GB)
  • University of Bern (CH)
  • Tsinghua University (CN)
  • NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
  • National Institute for Environmental Studies (JP)
  • Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (JP)
  • National Centre for Earth Observation (GB)
  • Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
  • Princeton University (US)
  • Met Office (GB)
  • Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (DE)
  • GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (DE)
  • Auburn University (US)
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
  • Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
  • Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (CN)
Corresponding author
  • Friedlingstein, Pierre
  • Andrew, Robbie M.
  • Hauck, Judith
  • Olsen, Are
  • Peters, Glen P.
  • Peters, Wouter
  • Pongratz, Julia
  • Canadell, Josep G.
  • Ciais, Philippe
  • Jackson, Robert B.
  • Alin, Simone
  • Arneth, Almut
  • Becker, Meike
  • Bittig, Henry C.
  • Chevallier, Frédéric
  • Chini, Louise P.
  • Evans, Wiley
  • Gasser, Thomas
  • Gehlen, Marion
  • Gruber, Nicolas
  • Hartung, Kerstin
  • Houghton, Richard A.
  • Ilyina, Tatiana
  • Jain, Atul K.
  • Kato, Etsushi
  • Korsbakken, Jan Ivar
  • Lienert, Sebastian
  • Liu, Zhu
  • Munro, David R.
  • Nabel, Julia E. M. S.
  • Nakaoka, Shin-Ichiro
  • Palmer, Paul I.
  • Pierrot, Denis
  • Poulter, Benjamin
  • Schwinger, Jörg
  • Skjelvan, Ingunn
  • Smith, Adam J. P.
  • Sutton, Adrienne J.
  • Tanhua, Toste
  • Tian, Hanqin
  • Tilbrook, Bronte
  • Walker, Anthony P.
  • Watson, Andrew J.
  • Yue, Xu
  • Zaehle, Sönke
ORCID
Venue
Earth System Science Data
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Published
2020-12-11
Volume
12
Issue
4
Pages
3269-3340
ISSN
  • 1866-3508 (ISSN-L)
  • 1866-3516
DOI
10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020
OpenAlex
W3093432062
Cited by
2,544
References
246
Citations by year
2026: 148 · 2025: 249 · 2024: 341 · 2023: 484 · 2022: 813 · 2021: 503 · 2020: 4
FWCI
168.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Earth system science data (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • UTAS Research Repository (acceptedVersion)
  • IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (acceptedVersion)
  • elib (German Aerospace Center) (acceptedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
  • Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) (acceptedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
  • Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • Institutional Archive of Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar-und Meeresforschung (Alfred-Wegener-Institut) (submittedVersion)
  • Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • NOAA Institutional Repository (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection (cc-by)
Funders
  • Fondation BNP Paribas (n/a)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (41975155, 71874097, 41921005)
  • Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (JQ19032)
  • European Commission
  • H2020 European Research Council (ERC-2013-SyG-610028)
  • European Space Agency (ESRIN/4000123002/18/I-NB)
  • Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (n/a)
  • Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (03F0773A)
  • Helmholtz Association (VH-NG-1301)
  • Stifterverband (n/a)
  • Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation (n/a)
  • Norges Forskningsråd (270061, 245927)
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (200020_172476)
  • Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R015953/1, NE/N018095/1, NE/P021417/1, NE/R016518/1)
  • National Institute of Food and Agriculture (2015-67003-23489, 2015-67003-23485)
  • U.S. Department of Commerce (n/a)
  • National Science Foundation (1903722)
  • Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University (80NSSC18K0893)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
Keywords
global carbon budget, anthropogenic CO2 emissions, fossil fuel emissions, cement production, land use change emissions, deforestation, atmospheric CO2 growth rate, ocean carbon sink, terrestrial carbon sink, carbon cycle, carbon-climate feedback, carbon budget uncertainty

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