Robert B. Cook, P. Ciais, Grégoire Broquet, Antonio Bombelli, Robert J. Andres, Riley M. Duren, Alberto Borges, G. R. van der Werf, Yude Pan, Anna Peregon, Josep G. Canadell, J. Butler, Christopher L. Sabine, Jean-Daniel Paris, Roger Dargaville, Benjamin Poulter, Peter Rayner, Oksana Tarasova, L. Rivier, Nadine Gobron, Ranga B. Myneni, S. Plummer, Shaun Quegan, Beverly E. Law, G. Kinderman, T. Moriyama, John B. Miller, Markus Reichstein, Frédéric Chevallier, Michael Obersteiner, Richard Engelen, R. DeFries, Diane Wickland, Heinrich Bovensmann, Matieu Henry, Rong Wang, Peter A. Raymond, S. L. Piao, Nicolas Gruber, Michael Buchwitz, Tom J. Battin, F. M. Bréon, Dennis S. Ojima, David S. Schimel, Kevin R. Gurney, Sebastiaan Luyssaert, C. Nussli, Claus Zehner, Laurent Bopp, Mathew Williams, Christoph Heinze, Gregg Marland, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Charles E. Miller, Riccardo Valentini, Alex Held, A. J. Dolman, C. Moulin, Martin Heimann, Earth and Climate, Systems Ecology, Petrology, Language, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette] (LSCE), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), ICOS-ATC (ICOS-ATC), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Vrije universiteit = Free university of Amsterdam [Amsterdam] (VU), Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (CALTECH)-NASA, School of Earth Sciences [Melbourne], Faculty of Science [Melbourne], University of Melbourne-University of Melbourne, JRC Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Ispra] (JRC), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [Laxenburg] (IIASA), Appalachian State University, University of North Carolina System (UNC), Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics [ETH Zürich] (IBP), Department of Environmental Systems Science [ETH Zürich] (D-USYS), Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich] (ETH Zürich)- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich] (ETH Zürich), Modélisation INVerse pour les mesures atmosphériques et SATellitaires (SATINV), Oak Ridge National Laboratory [Oak Ridge] (ORNL), UT-Battelle, LLC, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), University of Vienna [Vienna], Université de Liège, Institute of Environmental Physics [Bremen] (IUP), University of Bremen, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (CSIRO-MAR), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [Canberra] (CSIRO), Boston University [Boston] (BU), Arizona State University [Tempe] (ASU), Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR), Department of Biological Sciences [Bergen] (BIO / UiB), University of Bergen (UiB)-University of Bergen (UiB), Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [Rome, Italie] (FAO), Oregon State University (OSU), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado [Boulder]-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [Tokyo] (JAXA), Thales Alenia Space, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory [Fort Collins] (NREL), Colorado State University [Fort Collins] (CSU), Newtown, PA 19073, ICOS-RAMCES (ICOS-RAMCES), Peking University [Beijing], University of Sheffield [Sheffield], Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, National ecological observatory network, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Partenaires INRAE, University of Edinburgh, ESA Centre for Earth Observation (ESRIN), European Space Agency (ESA), VU University Amsterdam, NASA-California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [Amsterdam] (VU), Thales Alenia Space [Toulouse] (TAS), THALES [France], National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Agence Spatiale Européenne = European Space Agency (ESA)
A globally integrated carbon observation and analysis system is needed to improve the fundamental understanding of the global carbon cycle, to improve our ability to project future changes, and to verify the effectiveness of policies aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration. Building an integrated carbon observation system requires transformational advances from the existing sparse, exploratory framework towards a dense, robust, and sustained system in all components: anthropogenic emissions, the atmosphere, the ocean, and the terrestrial biosphere. The paper is addressed to scientists, policymakers, and funding agencies who need to have a global picture of the current state of the (diverse) carbon observations. We identify the current state of carbon observations, and the needs and notional requirements for a global integrated carbon observation system that can be built in the next decade. A key conclusion is the substantial expansion of the ground-based observation networks required to reach the high spatial resolution for CO2 and CH4 fluxes, and for carbon stocks for addressing policy-relevant objectives, and attributing flux changes to underlying processes in each region. In order to establish flux and stock diagnostics over areas such as the southern oceans, tropical forests, and the Arctic, in situ observations will have to be complemented with remote-sensing measurements. Remote sensing offers the advantage of dense spatial coverage and frequent revisit. A key challenge is to bring remote-sensing measurements to a level of long-term consistency and accuracy so that they can be efficiently combined in models to reduce uncertainties, in synergy with ground-based data. Bringing tight observational constraints on fossil fuel and land use change emissions will be the biggest challenge for deployment of a policy-relevant integrated carbon observation system. This will require in situ and remotely sensed data at much higher resolution and density than currently achieved for natural fluxes, although over a small land area (cities, industrial sites, power plants), as well as the inclusion of fossil fuel CO2 proxy measurements such as radiocarbon in CO2 and carbon-fuel combustion tracers. Additionally, a policy-relevant carbon monitoring system should also provide mechanisms for reconciling regional top-down (atmosphere-based) and bottom-up (surface-based) flux estimates across the range of spatial and temporal scales relevant to mitigation policies. In addition, uncertainties for each observation data-stream should be assessed. The success of the system will rely on long-term commitments to monitoring, on improved international collaboration to fill gaps in the current observations, on sustained efforts to improve access to the different data streams and make databases interoperable, and on the calibration of each component of the system to agreed-upon international scales., JRC.H.7-Climate Risk Management