_version_ 1866910910519443456
author Ke, Piyu
Ciais, Philippe
Yao, Yitong
Sitch, Stephen
Li, Wei
Xu, Yidi
Du, Xiaomeng
Gui, Xiaofan
Bastos, Ana
Zaehle, Sonke
Poulter, Ben
Colligan, Thomas
van der Woude, Auke M.
Peters, Wouter
Liu, Zhu
Jin, Zhe
Tian, Xiangjun
Wang, Yilong
Liu, Junjie
Pandey, Sudhanshu
O'Dell, Chris
Bian, Jiang
Zhou, Chuanlong
Miller, John
Lan, Xin
O'Sullivan, Michael
Friedlingstein, Pierre
van der Werf, Guido R.
Peters, Glen P.
Piao, Shilong
Chevallier, Frederic
author_facet Ke, Piyu
Ciais, Philippe
Yao, Yitong
Sitch, Stephen
Li, Wei
Xu, Yidi
Du, Xiaomeng
Gui, Xiaofan
Bastos, Ana
Zaehle, Sonke
Poulter, Ben
Colligan, Thomas
van der Woude, Auke M.
Peters, Wouter
Liu, Zhu
Jin, Zhe
Tian, Xiangjun
Wang, Yilong
Liu, Junjie
Pandey, Sudhanshu
O'Dell, Chris
Bian, Jiang
Zhou, Chuanlong
Miller, John
Lan, Xin
O'Sullivan, Michael
Friedlingstein, Pierre
van der Werf, Guido R.
Peters, Glen P.
Piao, Shilong
Chevallier, Frederic
contents The high growth rate of atmospheric CO2 in 2023 was found to be caused by a severe reduction of the global net land carbon sink. Here we update the global CO2 budget from January 1st to July 1st 2024, during which El Niño drought conditions continued to prevail in the Tropics but ceased by March 2024. We used three dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), machine learning emulators of ocean models, three atmospheric inversions driven by observations from the second Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) satellite, and near-real-time fossil CO2 emissions estimates. In a one-year period from July 2023 to July 2024 covering the El Niño 2023/24 event, we found a record-high CO2 growth rate of 3.66~$\pm$~0.09 ppm~yr$^{-1}$ ($\pm$~1 standard deviation) since 1979. Yet, the CO2 growth rate anomaly obtained after removing the long term trend is 1.1 ppm~yr$^{-1}$, which is marginally smaller than the July--July growth rate anomalies of the two major previous El Niño events in 1997/98 and 2015/16. The atmospheric CO2 growth rate anomaly was primarily driven by a 2.24 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ reduction in the net land sink including 0.3 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ of fire emissions, partly offset by a 0.38 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ increase in the ocean sink relative to the 2015--2022 July--July mean. The tropics accounted for 97.5\% of the land CO2 flux anomaly, led by the Amazon (50.6\%), central Africa (34\%), and Southeast Asia (8.2\%), with extra-tropical sources in South Africa and southern Brazil during April--July 2024. Our three DGVMs suggest greater tropical CO2 losses in 2023/2024 than during the two previous large El Niño in 1997/98 and 2015/16, whereas inversions indicate losses more comparable to 2015/16. Overall, this update of the low latency budget highlights the impact of recent El Niño droughts in explaining the high CO2 growth rate until July 2024.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_09189
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Low latency global carbon budget reveals a continuous decline of the land carbon sink during the 2023/24 El Nino event
Ke, Piyu
Ciais, Philippe
Yao, Yitong
Sitch, Stephen
Li, Wei
Xu, Yidi
Du, Xiaomeng
Gui, Xiaofan
Bastos, Ana
Zaehle, Sonke
Poulter, Ben
Colligan, Thomas
van der Woude, Auke M.
Peters, Wouter
Liu, Zhu
Jin, Zhe
Tian, Xiangjun
Wang, Yilong
Liu, Junjie
Pandey, Sudhanshu
O'Dell, Chris
Bian, Jiang
Zhou, Chuanlong
Miller, John
Lan, Xin
O'Sullivan, Michael
Friedlingstein, Pierre
van der Werf, Guido R.
Peters, Glen P.
Piao, Shilong
Chevallier, Frederic
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
The high growth rate of atmospheric CO2 in 2023 was found to be caused by a severe reduction of the global net land carbon sink. Here we update the global CO2 budget from January 1st to July 1st 2024, during which El Niño drought conditions continued to prevail in the Tropics but ceased by March 2024. We used three dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), machine learning emulators of ocean models, three atmospheric inversions driven by observations from the second Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) satellite, and near-real-time fossil CO2 emissions estimates. In a one-year period from July 2023 to July 2024 covering the El Niño 2023/24 event, we found a record-high CO2 growth rate of 3.66~$\pm$~0.09 ppm~yr$^{-1}$ ($\pm$~1 standard deviation) since 1979. Yet, the CO2 growth rate anomaly obtained after removing the long term trend is 1.1 ppm~yr$^{-1}$, which is marginally smaller than the July--July growth rate anomalies of the two major previous El Niño events in 1997/98 and 2015/16. The atmospheric CO2 growth rate anomaly was primarily driven by a 2.24 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ reduction in the net land sink including 0.3 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ of fire emissions, partly offset by a 0.38 GtC~yr$^{-1}$ increase in the ocean sink relative to the 2015--2022 July--July mean. The tropics accounted for 97.5\% of the land CO2 flux anomaly, led by the Amazon (50.6\%), central Africa (34\%), and Southeast Asia (8.2\%), with extra-tropical sources in South Africa and southern Brazil during April--July 2024. Our three DGVMs suggest greater tropical CO2 losses in 2023/2024 than during the two previous large El Niño in 1997/98 and 2015/16, whereas inversions indicate losses more comparable to 2015/16. Overall, this update of the low latency budget highlights the impact of recent El Niño droughts in explaining the high CO2 growth rate until July 2024.
title Low latency global carbon budget reveals a continuous decline of the land carbon sink during the 2023/24 El Nino event
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09189