Seeing carbon dioxide emissions through the trees

Article Environmental Sciences

Surprising stability of recent global carbon cycling enables improved fossil fuel emission verification

Benjamin Birner et al.

Summary: Verification of reported fossil fuel emissions is crucial for monitoring the progress of the Paris Agreement. A simple model is used here to validate the sensitivity of net carbon exchange and improve the accuracy of reported global emissions. By accounting for interannual and decadal variability, our findings show a notable stability of the carbon cycle and allow for verification of reported global emissions within 4.4% (at a 95% confidence level) over a five-year stocktake cycle, reducing the previous uncertainty by half.

NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE (2023)

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Article Geosciences, Multidisciplinary

Global Carbon Budget 2021

Pierre Friedlingstein et al.

Summary: Accurate assessment of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and their redistribution among different components is critical for understanding the global carbon cycle. This study presents datasets and methodologies to quantify the major components of the global carbon budget. The results show changes in fossil fuel and land-use change emissions, as well as atmospheric CO2 concentration, ocean CO2 sink, and terrestrial CO2 sink.

EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE DATA (2022)

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Article Multidisciplinary Sciences

A decline in global CFC-11 emissions during 2018-2019

Stephen A. Montzka et al.

Summary: The atmospheric concentration of CFC-11 has been declining since the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances, with a surprising slowdown in decline from 2013 to 2018 due to increasing emissions. However, recent data shows an accelerated decline in global emissions of CFC-11 in 2019 and 2020, indicating a substantial decrease in unreported production. This reduction in emissions bodes well for limiting future ozone depletion and suggests a timely recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer.

NATURE (2021)

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Article Multidisciplinary Sciences

Under-reporting of greenhouse gas emissions in US cities

Kevin Robert Gurney et al.

Summary: Many cities in the US self-report greenhouse gas emissions, but in reality, US cities under-report their own emissions by an average of 18.3% due to omitting particular fuels and source types from their inventories and estimating transportation emissions differently.

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2021)

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Editorial Material Environmental Sciences