Global Carbon Budget 2022

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical 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 methodologies to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 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 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) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based data products. The terrestrial CO2 sink (S-LAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. 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 year 2021, EFOS increased by 5.1% relative to 2020, with fossil emissions at 10.1 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) (9.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) when the cement carbonation sink is included), and ELUC was 1.1 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1),for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission (including the cement carbonation sink) of 10.9 +/- 0.8 GtC yr 1 (40.0 +/- 2.9 GtCO(2)). Also, for 2021, G(ATM) was 5.2 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1) (2.5 +/- 0.1 ppm yr(-1)), S-OCEAN was 2.9 +/- 0.4 GtC yr(-1), and SLAND was 3.5 +/- 0.9 GtC yr(-1), with a B-IM of 0.6 GtC yr(-1) (i.e. the total estimated sources were too low or sinks were too high). The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2021 reached 414.71 +/- 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2022 suggest an increase in E-FOS relative to 2021 of +1.0% (0.1% to 1.9 %) globally and atmospheric CO2 concentration reaching 417.2 ppm, more than 50% above pre-industrial levels (around 278 ppm). Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959-2021, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr(-1) persist for the representation of annual to semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use change emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extratropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the strength of the ocean sink over the last decade. 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. The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2022 (Friedlingstein et al., 2022b).

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Author Friedlingstein, Pierre
O'Sullivan, Michael
Jones, Matthew W.
Andrew, Robbie M.
Gregor, Luke
Hauck, Judith
Le Quéré, Corinne
Luijkx, Ingrid T.
Olsen, Are
Peters, Glen P.
Peters, Wouter
Pongratz, Julia
Schwingshackl, Clemens
Sitch, Stephen
Canadell, Josep G.
Ciais, Philippe
Jackson, Robert B.
Alin, Simone R.
Alkama, Ramdane
Arneth, Almut
Arora, Vivek K.
Bates, Nicholas R.
Becker, Meike
Bellouin, Nicolas
Bittig, Henry C.
Bopp, Laurent
Chevallier, Frédéric
Chini, Louise P.
Cronin, Margot
Evans, Wiley
Falk, Stefanie
Feely, Richard A.
Gasser, Thomas
Gehlen, Marion
Gkritzalis, Thanos
Gloege, Lucas
Grassi, Giacomo
Gruber, Nicolas
Gürses, Özgür
Harris, Ian
Hefner, Matthew
Houghton, Richard A.
Hurtt, George C.
Iida, Yosuke
Ilyina, Tatiana
Jain, Atul K.
Jersild, Annika
Kadono, Koji
Kato, Etsushi
Kennedy, Daniel
Klein Goldewijk, Kees
Knauer, Jürgen
Korsbakken, Jan Ivar
Landschützer, Peter
Lefèvre, Nathalie
Lindsay, Keith
Liu, Junjie
Liu, Zhu
Marland, Gregg
Mayot, Nicolas
McGrath, Matthew J.
Metzl, Nicolas
Monacci, Natalie M.
Munro, David R.
Nakaoka, Shin-Ichiro
Niwa, Yosuke
O'Brien, Kevin
Ono, Tsuneo
Palmer, Paul I.
Pan, Naiqing
Pierrot, Denis
Pocock, Katie
Poulter, Benjamin
Resplandy, Laure
Robertson, Eddy
Rödenbeck, Christian
Rodriguez, Carmen
Rosan, Thais M.
Schwinger, Jörg
Séférian, Roland
Shutler, Jamie D.
Skjelvan, Ingunn
Steinhoff, Tobias
Sun, Qing
Sutton, Adrienne J.
Sweeney, Colm
Takao, Shintaro
Tanhua, Toste
Tans, Pieter P.
Tian, Xiangjun
Tian, Hanqin
Tilbrook, Bronte
Tsujino, Hiroyuki
Tubiello, Francesco
van der Werf, Guido R.
Walker, Anthony P.
Wanninkhof, Rik
Whitehead, Chris
Willstrand Wranne, Anna
Wright, Rebecca
Yuan, Wenping
Yue, Chao
Yue, Xu
Zaehle, Sönke
Zeng, Jiye
Zheng, Bo
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2022-11-11T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:41:29.222766
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26101
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Friedlingstein, Pierre, O'Sullivan, Michael, Jones, Matthew W., Andrew, Robbie M., Gregor, Luke, Hauck, Judith, Le Quéré, Corinne, Luijkx, Ingrid T., Olsen, Are, Peters, Glen P., Peters, Wouter, Pongratz, Julia, Schwingshackl, Clemens, Sitch, Stephen, Canadell, Josep G., Ciais, Philippe, Jackson, Robert B., Alin, Simone R., Alkama, Ramdane, Arneth, Almut, Arora, Vivek K., Bates, Nicholas R., Becker, Meike, Bellouin, Nicolas, Bittig, Henry C., Bopp, Laurent, Chevallier, Frédéric, Chini, Louise P., Cronin, Margot, Evans, Wiley, Falk, Stefanie, Feely, Richard A., Gasser, Thomas, Gehlen, Marion, Gkritzalis, Thanos, Gloege, Lucas, Grassi, Giacomo, Gruber, Nicolas, Gürses, Özgür, Harris, Ian, Hefner, Matthew, Houghton, Richard A., Hurtt, George C., Iida, Yosuke, Ilyina, Tatiana, Jain, Atul K., Jersild, Annika, Kadono, Koji, Kato, Etsushi, Kennedy, Daniel, Klein Goldewijk, Kees, Knauer, Jürgen, Korsbakken, Jan Ivar, Landschützer, Peter, Lefèvre, Nathalie, Lindsay, Keith, Liu, Junjie, Liu, Zhu, Marland, Gregg, Mayot, Nicolas, McGrath, Matthew J., Metzl, Nicolas, Monacci, Natalie M., Munro, David R., Nakaoka, Shin-Ichiro, Niwa, Yosuke, O'Brien, Kevin, Ono, Tsuneo, Palmer, Paul I., Pan, Naiqing, Pierrot, Denis, Pocock, Katie, Poulter, Benjamin, Resplandy, Laure, Robertson, Eddy, Rödenbeck, Christian, Rodriguez, Carmen, Rosan, Thais M., Schwinger, Jörg, Séférian, Roland, Shutler, Jamie D., Skjelvan, Ingunn, Steinhoff, Tobias, Sun, Qing, Sutton, Adrienne J., Sweeney, Colm, Takao, Shintaro, Tanhua, Toste, Tans, Pieter P., Tian, Xiangjun, Tian, Hanqin, Tilbrook, Bronte, Tsujino, Hiroyuki, Tubiello, Francesco, van der Werf, Guido R., Walker, Anthony P., Wanninkhof, Rik, Whitehead, Chris, Willstrand Wranne, Anna, Wright, Rebecca, Yuan, Wenping, Yue, Chao, Yue, Xu, Zaehle, Sönke, Zeng, Jiye, Zheng, Bo. (2022). Global Carbon Budget 2022. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7668j2m. Accessed 29 July 2025.

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