Two new ESSD articles evaluate in detail the greenhouse gas emissions across the European domain

28 May 2021

Earth System Science Data (ESSD) announces the publication of two greenhouse gas synthesis papers built on results from the VERIFY project (Petrescu et al., 2020) (https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/961/2020/). The two new papers evaluate in detail the greenhouse gas emissions across the European domain. More than 20 research institutions from 14 European countries compiled, quantified, and assessed a 1990–2018 time series of greenhouse gas estimates (CO2, CH4, and N2O) from all sectors that reported to the UNFCCC, as well as emissions obtained from atmospheric observations (top-down inversions). In sharing this new integrated recent-emission inventory data, process-based ecosystem model results, data-driven sector model results, and inverse modelling estimates, they call attention to large differences between bottom-up and top-down results, particularly for CO2. For CH4 and N2O, bottom-up estimates agree better with inversions based on atmospheric observations. An important issue hampering comparison is the lack of shared guidelines on estimating uncertainties of individual spatially disaggregated research datasets of emissions, while national greenhouse gas inventories include uncertainty estimates. As the EU already approved its 2030–2050 reduction targets, reducing these uncertainties will prove to be challenging. However, this is badly needed to accurately estimate the greenhouse gas emissions and removals as an aid for decision-making by policy makers at the national and European levels and to contribute to the international effort on greenhouse gas monitoring. These syntheses will be regularly updated. Through the open-data policies of ESSD, readers and users have full and free access to accurate emissions information.


The consolidated European synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions for the European Union and United Kingdom: 1990–2017
Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Chunjing Qiu, Philippe Ciais, Rona L. Thompson, Philippe Peylin, Matthew J. McGrath, Efisio Solazzo, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Francesco N. Tubiello, Peter Bergamaschi, Dominik Brunner, Glen P. Peters, Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Pierre Regnier, Ronny Lauerwald, David Bastviken, Aki Tsuruta, Wilfried Winiwarter, Prabir K. Patra, Matthias Kuhnert, Gabriel D. Oreggioni, Monica Crippa, Marielle Saunois, Lucia Perugini, Tiina Markkanen, Tuula Aalto, Christine D. Groot Zwaaftink, Yuanzhi Yao, Chris Wilson, Giulia Conchedda, Dirk Günther, Adrian Leip, Pete Smith, Jean-Matthieu Haussaire, Antti Leppänen, Alistair J. Manning, Joe McNorton, Patrick Brockmann, and Albertus Johannes Dolman
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2307–2362, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2307-2021, 2021
The consolidated European synthesis of CO2 emissions and removals for the European Union and United Kingdom: 1990–2018
Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Matthew J. McGrath, Robbie M. Andrew, Philippe Peylin, Glen P. Peters, Philippe Ciais, Gregoire Broquet, Francesco N. Tubiello, Christoph Gerbig, Julia Pongratz, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Giacomo Grassi, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Pierre Regnier, Ronny Lauerwald, Matthias Kuhnert, Juraj Balkovič, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Hugo A. C. Denier van der Gon, Efisio Solazzo, Chunjing Qiu, Roberto Pilli, Igor B. Konovalov, Richard A. Houghton, Dirk Günther, Lucia Perugini, Monica Crippa, Raphael Ganzenmüller, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Pete Smith, Saqr Munassar, Rona L. Thompson, Giulia Conchedda, Guillaume Monteil, Marko Scholze, Ute Karstens, Patrick Brockmann, and Albertus Johannes Dolman
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2363–2406, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2363-2021, 2021

Contact: Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu (a.m.r.petrescu@vu.nl)