title: Top-down assessment of the Asian carbon budget since the mid 1990s.
abstract: Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the principal driver of anthropogenic climate change. Asia is an important region for the global carbon budget, with 4 of the world's 10 largest national emitters of CO2. Using an ensemble of seven atmospheric inverse systems, we estimated land biosphere fluxes (natural, land-use change and fires) based on atmospheric observations of CO2 concentration. The Asian land biosphere was a net sink of -0.46 (-0.70-0.24) PgC per year (median and range) for 1996-2012 and was mostly located in East Asia, while in South and Southeast Asia the land biosphere was close to carbon neutral. In East Asia, the annual CO2 sink increased between 1996-2001 and 2008-2012 by 0.56 (0.30-0.81) PgC, accounting for ∼35% of the increase in the global land biosphere sink. Uncertainty in the fossil fuel emissions contributes significantly (32%) to the uncertainty in land biosphere sink change.
authors.affiliation: Norsk Institutt for Luftforskning (NILU), Kjeller, Norway.
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Geochemical Cycle Research, Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama 236-0001, Japan.
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Patra
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement (LSCE, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chevallier
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maksyutov
authors.affiliation: Oceans and Atmosphere, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), 3195 Aspendale, Australia.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Law
authors.affiliation: Oceans and Atmosphere, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), 3195 Aspendale, Australia.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ziehn
authors.affiliation: Department of Meteorology and Air Quality, Environmental Sciences Group, Wageningen University (WU), 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: I T
authors.initials: IT
authors.lastname: van der Laan-Luijkx
authors.affiliation: Department of Meteorology and Air Quality, Environmental Sciences Group, Wageningen University (WU), 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.|University of Groningen, Centre for Isotope Research, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: Department of Upper Atmospheric Layers Physics, Central Aerological Observatory (CAO), Moscow 141700, Russia.|National Research Tomsk State University (TSU), 634050 Tomsk, Russia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ganshin
authors.affiliation: Department of Upper Atmospheric Layers Physics, Central Aerological Observatory (CAO), Moscow 141700, Russia.|National Research Tomsk State University (TSU), 634050 Tomsk, Russia.|Department of Atmospheric Physics and Microwave Diagnostics, Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhuravlev
authors.affiliation: Atmospheric Environment and Applied Meteorology Research Department, Meteorological Research Institute (MRI), Tsukuba 305-0052, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maki
authors.affiliation: Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Global Environment and Marine Department, Tokyo 100-8122, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shirai
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishizawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Geochemical Cycle Research, Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama 236-0001, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saeki
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba 305-8506, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Machida
authors.affiliation: Institute on Ecosystems and Department of Ecology, Montana State University (MSU), 59717 Bozeman, Montana, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Poulter
authors.affiliation: Global Carbon Project, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), 2601 Canberra, Australia.
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Canadell
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement (LSCE, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ciais