How Uncertain Are Estimates of CO<sub>2</sub> Emissions?

Marland, Gregg; Hamal, K.; Jonas, M.

doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2009.00108.x

Cited by 94 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…There is only one available MRIO study quantifying the uncertainty in the CF of a country using the Monte Carlo analysis (35). This study and other information on the uncertainty of input parameters (17,(36)(37)(38)(39) was used to provide a rough estimate of the uncertainty in the results, which is indicated in Table 4. We can see high uncertainties in the CF of individual goods but surprisingly low uncertainties in the CF of nations (35).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

Hertwich

Peters

2009

Environ. Sci. Technol.

1,386

732

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Processes causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions benefit humans by providing consumer goods and services. This benefit, and hence the responsibility for emissions, varies by purpose or consumption category and is unevenly distributed across and within countries. We quantify greenhouse gas emissions associated with the final consumption of goods and services for 73 nations and 14 aggregate world regions. We analyze the contribution of 8 categories: construction, shelter, food, clothing, mobility, manufactured products, services, and trade. National average per capita footprints vary from 1 tCO 2 e/y in African countries to ∼30t/y in Luxembourg and the United States. The expenditure elasticity is 0.57. The cross-national expenditure elasticity for just CO 2 , 0.81, corresponds remarkably well to the cross-sectional elasticities found within nations, suggesting a global relationship between expenditure and emissions that holds across several orders of magnitude difference. On the global level, 72% of greenhouse gas emissions are related to household consumption, 10% to government consumption, and 18% to investments. Food accounts for 20% of GHG emissions, operation and maintenance of residences is 19%, and mobility is 17%. Food and services are more important in developing countries, while mobility and manufactured goods rise fast with income and dominate in rich countries. The importance of public services and manufactured goods has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in policy. Policy priorities hence depend on development status and country-level characteristics.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

Hertwich

Peters

2009

Environ. Sci. Technol.

1,386

732

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“…The uncertainty on global FFCO2 emissions is dominated by the magnitude of FFCO2 emissions from the largest national emitters and the uncertainty associated with those emitters . Marland et al (2009) discuss several lines of evidence for evaluating the uncertainty of emissions estimates, including the extent to which estimates are revised over time subsequent to their initial publication, and Pacala et al (2010) discuss uncertainty at length in the context of possibilities for independent verification of nationally reported emission inventories.…”

Section: Uncertainties Associated With National and Globalmentioning

confidence: 99%

A synthesis of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion

et al. 2012

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Abstract. This synthesis discusses the emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production. While much is known about these emissions, there is still much that is unknown about the details surrounding these emissions. This synthesis explores our knowledge of these emissions in terms of why there is concern about them; how they are calculated; the major global efforts on inventorying them; their global, regional, and national totals at different spatial and temporal scales; how they are distributed on global grids (i.e., maps); how they are transported in models; and the uncertainties associated with these different aspects of the emissions. The magnitude of emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels has been almost continuously increasing with time since fossil fuels were first used by humans. Despite events in some nations specifically designed to reduce emissions, or which have had emissions reduction as a byproduct of other events, global total emissions continue their general increase with time. Global total fossilfuel carbon dioxide emissions are known to within 10 % uncertainty (95 % confidence interval). Uncertainty on individual national total fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions range from a few percent to more than 50 %. This manuscript concludes that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion continue to increase with time and that while much is known about the overall characteristics of these emissions, much is still to be learned about the detailed characteristics of these emissions.

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“…Although errors in these inventories are generally thought to be relatively small, E F constitute the largest flux in the C budget; thus, accounting for potential uncertainty and errors is critical to evaluating and constraining the global C cycle (38). The datasets differ in their treatment of international transport, gas flaring, cement production, and other areas; accounting practices of different institutions and countries provide an additional component of uncertainty (39).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the true value of spatial errors across countries is largely unknown, there is general consensus that errors are likely smaller in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations than in non-OECD nations (39). We account for spatial uncertainty and errors in reporting practices by assigning a 5% potential error in emissions from OECD nations and a 10% potential error in emissions from non-OECD nations.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical nighttime warming as a dominant driver of variability in the terrestrial carbon sink

Anderegg

Ballantyne

Smith

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

101

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The terrestrial biosphere is currently a strong carbon (C) sink but may switch to a source in the 21st century as climate-driven losses exceed CO 2 -driven C gains, thereby accelerating global warming. Although it has long been recognized that tropical climate plays a critical role in regulating interannual climate variability, the causal link between changes in temperature and precipitation and terrestrial processes remains uncertain. Here, we combine atmospheric mass balance, remote sensing-modeled datasets of vegetation C uptake, and climate datasets to characterize the temporal variability of the terrestrial C sink and determine the dominant climate drivers of this variability. We show that the interannual variability of global land C sink has grown by 50-100% over the past 50 y. We further find that interannual land C sink variability is most strongly linked to tropical nighttime warming, likely through respiration. This apparent sensitivity of respiration to nighttime temperatures, which are projected to increase faster than global average temperatures, suggests that C stored in tropical forests may be vulnerable to future warming.climate change | climate feedback | asymmetrical warming | carbon budget | inversion model T errestrial ecosystems have been a substantial net sink of anthropogenic carbon (C) emissions since the 1960s (1-4), but the terrestrial C sink could switch to a C source in the 21st century, resulting in a positive C cycle-climate feedback that would accelerate global surface warming with potentially major consequences for the biosphere (5-7). The interannual variability of the terrestrial C sink can help constrain our understanding of C/climate feedbacks and identify regions and mechanisms of the terrestrial C cycle that are most sensitive to climate parameters, shedding light on the future of the sink and its possible transition to a source (8). Currently, several major drivers have been shown to be correlated with the interannual variability of the terrestrial C sink, including (i) tropical temperature, which is tightly coupled to interannual variability in the atmospheric growth rate (AGR) of CO 2 (8, 9); (ii) tropical drought stress, including major droughts in the Amazon (10-12), which has been suggested to underlie increasing sensitivity of the AGR to tropical temperature over the period from 1959-2010 (13); (iii) temperature and precipitation variability in semiarid regions (14, 15); and (iv) average minimum daily (hereafter "nighttime") temperatures, which studies of several local field sites in the tropics have found play a major role in interannual productivity (16)(17)(18).Determining the mechanism underlying the interannual variability of the terrestrial C sink, including the relative roles of precipitation vs. temperature stress and their effects on gross primary productivity (GPP) vs. total respiration (both autotrophic and heterotrophic; R), is critical to predict the sink's future and to improve Earth system models. Here, we quantify changes in the interannual variability...

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How Uncertain Are Estimates of CO₂ Emissions?

Cited by 94 publications

References 4 publications

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

A synthesis of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion

Tropical nighttime warming as a dominant driver of variability in the terrestrial carbon sink

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How Uncertain Are Estimates of CO2 Emissions?

Cited by 94 publications

References 4 publications

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

A synthesis of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion

Tropical nighttime warming as a dominant driver of variability in the terrestrial carbon sink

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How Uncertain Are Estimates of CO₂ Emissions?