Global greenhouse gas reconciliation 2022

Abstract. In this study, we provide an update on the methodology and data used by Deng et al. (2022) to compare the national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) and atmospheric inversion model ensembles contributed by international research teams coordinated by the Global Carbon Project. The comparison framework uses transparent processing of the net ecosystem exchange fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from inversions to provide estimates of terrestrial carbon stock changes over managed land that can be used to evaluate NGHGIs. For methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), we separate anthropogenic emissions from natural sources based directly on the inversion results to make them compatible with NGHGIs. Our global harmonized NGHGI database was updated with inventory data until February 2023 by compiling data from periodical United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) inventories by Annex I countries and sporadic and less detailed emissions reports by non-Annex I countries given by national communications and biennial update reports. For the inversion data, we used an ensemble of 22 global inversions produced for the most recent assessments of the global budgets of CO2, CH4, and N2O coordinated by the Global Carbon Project with ancillary data. The CO2 inversion ensemble in this study goes through 2021, building on our previous report from 1990 to 2019, and includes three new satellite inversions compared to the previous study and an improved managed-land mask. As a result, although significant differences exist between the CO2 inversion estimates, both satellite and in situ inversions over managed lands indicate that Russia and Canada had a larger land carbon sink in recent years than reported in their NGHGIs, while the NGHGIs reported a significant upward trend of carbon sink in Russia but a downward trend in Canada. For CH4 and N2O, the results of the new inversion ensembles are extended to 2020. Rapid increases in anthropogenic CH4 emissions were observed in developing countries, with varying levels of agreement between NGHGIs and inversion results, while developed countries showed a slowly declining or stable trend in emissions. Much denser sampling of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations by different satellites, coordinated into a global constellation, is expected in the coming years. The methodology proposed here to compare inversion results with NGHGIs can be applied regularly for monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation policy and progress by countries to meet the objectives of their pledges. The dataset constructed for this study is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13887128 (Deng et al., 2024).

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Publication Details

Journal
Earth system science data
Published
2025-03-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1121-2025
Citations
13
Primary Topic
Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
14.37
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article

Global greenhouse gas reconciliation 2022

Frédéric Chevallier, T. Wang, Brendan Keith Aidan Byrne, Giacomo Grassi et al.
13 citations
Earth system science data
Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
14.37
article

Global greenhouse gas reconciliation 2022

Frédéric Chevallier, T. Wang, Brendan Keith Aidan Byrne, Giacomo Grassi, Joël Thanwerdas, Paul I. Palmer, Arjo Segers, Marielle Saunois, Katsumasa Tanaka, Clément Albergel, Ana Bastos, Dmitry Belikov, Adrien Martinez, Stephen A. Sitch, Benjamin Poulter, Philippe Ciais, Wouter Peters, Rajesh Janardanan, Rona L. Thompson, Xuekun Fang, Zhu Liu, Shamil Maksyutov, Yosuke Niwa, Aki Tsuruta, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Zhu Deng, Kushal Tibrewal, Bo Zheng, Junjie Liu, Hanqin Tian, Liting Hu
article en
13 citations

Abstract

Abstract. In this study, we provide an update on the methodology and data used by Deng et al. (2022) to compare the national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) and atmospheric inversion model ensembles contributed by international research teams coordinated by the Global Carbon Project. The comparison framework uses transparent processing of the net ecosystem exchange fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from inversions to provide estimates of terrestrial carbon stock changes over managed land that can be used to evaluate NGHGIs. For methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), we separate anthropogenic emissions from natural sources based directly on the inversion results to make them compatible with NGHGIs. Our global harmonized NGHGI database was updated with inventory data until February 2023 by compiling data from periodical United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) inventories by Annex I countries and sporadic and less detailed emissions reports by non-Annex I countries given by national communications and biennial update reports. For the inversion data, we used an ensemble of 22 global inversions produced for the most recent assessments of the global budgets of CO2, CH4, and N2O coordinated by the Global Carbon Project with ancillary data. The CO2 inversion ensemble in this study goes through 2021, building on our previous report from 1990 to 2019, and includes three new satellite inversions compared to the previous study and an improved managed-land mask. As a result, although significant differences exist between the CO2 inversion estimates, both satellite and in situ inversions over managed lands indicate that Russia and Canada had a larger land carbon sink in recent years than reported in their NGHGIs, while the NGHGIs reported a significant upward trend of carbon sink in Russia but a downward trend in Canada. For CH4 and N2O, the results of the new inversion ensembles are extended to 2020. Rapid increases in anthropogenic CH4 emissions were observed in developing countries, with varying levels of agreement between NGHGIs and inversion results, while developed countries showed a slowly declining or stable trend in emissions. Much denser sampling of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations by different satellites, coordinated into a global constellation, is expected in the coming years. The methodology proposed here to compare inversion results with NGHGIs can be applied regularly for monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation policy and progress by countries to meet the objectives of their pledges. The dataset constructed for this study is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13887128 (Deng et al., 2024).

Earth system science dataVol. 17(3)
Boston College (US), California Institute of Technology (US), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FI), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Goddard Space Flight Center (US), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US), Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (NL), Shandong University (CN), Chiba University (JP), University of Groningen (NL), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (FR), National Institute for Environmental Studies (JP), University of Exeter (GB), Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR), Université Paris-Saclay (FR), Kjeller Innovasjon (Norway) (NO), European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (GB), Joint Research Centre (IT), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (FR), National Centre for Earth Observation (GB), CEA Paris-Saclay (FR), Meteorological Research Institute (JP), Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (CH), Zhejiang University (CN), University of Hong Kong (HK), Wageningen University & Research (NL), Leipzig University (DE), University of Edinburgh (GB), Tsinghua University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
14.37
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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