Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget

Tools

Friedlingstein, Pierre, Le Quéré, Corinne, O’Sullivan, Michael, Hauck, Judith, Landschützer, Peter, Luijkx, Ingrid T., Li, Hongmei, Van der woude, Auke, Schwingshackl, Clemens, Pongratz, Julia, Regnier, Pierre, Andrew, Robbie M., Bakker, Dorothee c. e., Canadell, Josep G., Ciais, Philippe, Gasser, Thomas, Jones, Matthew W., Lan, Xin, Morgan, Eric, Olsen, Are, Peters, Glen P., Peters, Wouter, Sitch, Stephen and Tian, Hanqin (2025) Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836

[thumbnail of Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget]
Preview
 PDF (Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget) - Accepted Version
Available under License Unspecified licence.
Download (4MB) | Preview

Abstract

Despite the adoption of the Paris Agreement ten years ago, fossil CO2 emissions continue to rise, pushing atmospheric CO2 levels to 423 ppm in 2024 and driving human-induced warming to 1.36°C, within years of breaching the 1.5°C limit 1,2. Accurate reporting of anthropogenic and natural CO2 sources and sinks is a prerequisite to tracking the effectiveness of climate policy and detecting carbon sink responses to climate change. Yet notable mismatches between reported emissions and sinks have so far prevented confident interpretation of their trends and drivers 1. Here, we present and integrate recent advances in observations and process understanding to address some long-standing issues in the global carbon budget estimates. We show that the magnitude of the natural land sink is substantially smaller than previously estimated, while net emissions from anthropogenic land-use change are revised upwards 1. The ocean sink is 15% larger than the land sink, consistent with new evidence from oceanic and atmospheric observations 3,4. Climate change reduces the efficiency of the sinks, particularly on land, contributing 8.3 ± 1.4 ppm to the atmospheric CO2 increase since 1960. The combined effects of climate change and deforestation turn Southeast Asian and large parts of South American tropical forests from CO2 sinks to sources. This underscores the need to halt deforestation and limit warming to prevent further loss of carbon stored on land. Improved confidence in assessments of CO2 sources and sinks is fundamental for effective climate policy.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 16 Dec 2025 15:30
Last Modified: 16 Dec 2025 15:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101424
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09802-5

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item