An inversion model based on GEOS-Chem for estimating global and China's terrestrial carbon fluxes in 2019

Abstract

The 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories added the method of assimilating atmospheric CO2 concentrations to invert carbon sources and sinks; however, many global carbon inversion models are not publicly available. In addition, our regional assimilation inversion system, CCMVS-R (China Carbon Monitoring, Verification and Supporting for Regional), needs a global carbon inversion model with higher assimilation efficiency to provide boundary conditions. Here, an inversion model based on the global atmospheric chemistry model GEOS-Chem and a more accurate and easier-to-implement ensemble square root Kalman filter (EnSRF) algorithm is constructed and used to infer global and China's carbon fluxes in 2019. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations from ObsPack sites and five additional CO2 observational sites from China's Greenhouse Gas Observation Network (CGHGNET) were used for data assimilation to improve the estimate. The inverted annual global terrestrial and oceanic carbon uptake is 2.12 and 2.53 Pg C per year, respectively, accounting for 21.1% and 25.1% of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions. The remaining 5.41 Pg C per year in the atmosphere is consistent with the global atmospheric CO2 growth rates of 5.44 Pg C per year reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), showing that the inversion model can provide a reasonable estimate of global-scale natural carbon sinks. The inverted terrestrial carbon sink of China is 0.37 Pg C per year, accounting for approximately 13% of China's fossil CO2 emissions.