National CO2 budgets (2015–2020) inferred from atmospheric CO2 observations in support of the global stocktake

7 March 2023

Nations need to track their emissions and removals of CO2 over time to determine whether emission reduction actions are having the intended effect of reducing national CO2 emissions. These national CO2 emissions include fossil fuel emissions as well as emissions and removals of CO2 from the terrestrial biosphere (terrestrial carbon stocks), which are impacted by deforestation (CO2 emissions) and reforestation or improved land stewardship (CO2 removals). In this study, observed variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations are used to infer "top-down" net emissions and removals of CO2 for more than 100 countries across the world during 2015–2020. These low latency (~2 years) estimates are performed by an international collaboration of 14 top-down modelling groups and provided with uncertainty estimates. This pilot dataset is intended to compliment the traditional "bottom-up" estimates of national CO2 inventories, by providing an independent estimate for comparison.


The press release by JPL can be found at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-space-mission-takes-stock-of-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-countries

The press release by NASA can be found at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-space-mission-takes-stock-of-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-countries

National CO2 budgets (2015–2020) inferred from atmospheric CO2 observations in support of the global stocktake
Brendan Byrne, David F. Baker, Sourish Basu, Michael Bertolacci, Kevin W. Bowman, Dustin Carroll, Abhishek Chatterjee, Frédéric Chevallier, Philippe Ciais, Noel Cressie, David Crisp, Sean Crowell, Feng Deng, Zhu Deng, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Manvendra K. Dubey, Sha Feng, Omaira E. García, David W. T. Griffith, Benedikt Herkommer, Lei Hu, Andrew R. Jacobson, Rajesh Janardanan, Sujong Jeong, Matthew S. Johnson, Dylan B. A. Jones, Rigel Kivi, Junjie Liu, Zhiqiang Liu, Shamil Maksyutov, John B. Miller, Scot M. Miller, Isamu Morino, Justus Notholt, Tomohiro Oda, Christopher W. O'Dell, Young-Suk Oh, Hirofumi Ohyama, Prabir K. Patra, Hélène Peiro, Christof Petri, Sajeev Philip, David F. Pollard, Benjamin Poulter, Marine Remaud, Andrew Schuh, Mahesh K. Sha, Kei Shiomi, Kimberly Strong, Colm Sweeney, Yao Té, Hanqin Tian, Voltaire A. Velazco, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Thorsten Warneke, John R. Worden, Debra Wunch, Yuanzhi Yao, Jeongmin Yun, Andrew Zammit-Mangion, and Ning Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 963–1004, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-963-2023, 2023

Contact: Brendan Byrne (brendan.k.byrne@jpl.nasa.gov)