Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide

Corinne Le Quéré , M. R. Raupach , Josep G. Canadell , Gregg Marland , Laurent Bopp , Philippe Ciais (1, 2) , Thomas J. Conway , Scott C. Doney , Richard A. Feely , P. Foster , Pierre Friedlingstein , K. Gurney , Richard A. Houghton (3) , J. I. House , C. Huntingford , P. Levy , M. R. Lomas , J. Majkut , Nicolas Metzl (4) , J. Ometto , Glen P. Peters , Ian C. Prentice , J. T. Randerson , S. W. Running , Jorge L. Sarmiento , Ute Schuster , Stephen Sitch , Taro Takahashi , Nicolas Viovy (1, 5) , Guido R. van Der Werf , F. I. Woodward

1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
2 ICOS-ATC - ICOS-ATC
3 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
4 LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques
5 MOSAIC - Modélisation des Surfaces et Interfaces Continentales

Efforts to control climate change require the stabilization of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. This can only be achieved through a drastic reduction of global CO₂ emissions. Yet fossil fuel emissions increased by 29% between 2000 and 2008, in conjunction with increased contributions from emerging economies, from the production and international trade of goods and services, and from the use of coal as a fuel source. In contrast, emissions from land-use changes were nearly constant. Between 1959 and 2008, 43% of each year's CO₂ emissions remained in the atmosphere on average; the rest was absorbed by carbon sinks on land and in the oceans. In the past 50 years, the fraction of CO₂ emissions that remains in the atmosphere each year has likely increased, from about 40% to 45%, and models suggest that this trend was caused by a decrease in the uptake of CO₂ by the carbon sinks in response to climate change and variability. Changes in the CO₂ sinks are highly uncertain, but they could have a significant influence on future atmospheric CO₂ levels. It is therefore crucial to reduce the uncertainties.

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]; Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]; Milieux et Changements globaux

Corinne Le Quéré, M. R. Raupach, Josep G. Canadell, Gregg Marland, Laurent Bopp, et al.. Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geoscience, 2009, 2, pp.831-836. ⟨10.1038/NGEO689⟩. ⟨hal-00760186⟩