National Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) budgets inferred from atmospheric observations
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- Visualizations by:
- Greg Shirah and
- Helen-Nicole Kostis
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Brendan Byrne
- View full credits
This data visualization shows the emissions (sources) and removals (sinks) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) for more than 100 countries around the world. These estimates are informed by observations of atmospheric CO₂ observed by a network of ground-based sites and NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), which has mapped CO₂ around the globe since 2014.
The net emissions and removals are the combined impact of fossil fuel emissions and land carbon stock changes. These terrestrial carbon stock changes indicate changes in the amount of carbon stored in organic matter on land, which is impacted by land use and land use change, including emissions from deforestation and removals from improved land stewardship and reforestation.
The visualization shows that fossil fuel emissions drive net emissions of CO₂ to the atmosphere, which are in turn driving climate change. Terrestrial carbon stock changes are smaller than the fossil fuel emissions and regionally varying. In general, terrestrial carbon stocks are increasing across the northern extratropics but are more variable in the tropics, where deforestation is more extensive.
This data visualization illustrates changes in the amount of carbon stored in organic matter on land, called terrestrial carbon stock changes, from 2015 to 2020. Activities such as improved land stewardship and deforestation, which is more extensive in the tropics than other regions, affect these stock changes.

Este mapa muestra el promedio de emisiones y eliminaciones netas de dióxido de carbono entre 2015 y 2020 utilizando estimaciones informadas por las mediciones del satélite OCO-2 de la NASA. Los países en los que se eliminó más dióxido de carbono del emitido aparecen como depresiones verdes, mientras que los países con mayores emisiones son de color marrón o rojo y parecen sobresalir de la página.
Crédito: Estudio de Visualización Científica de la NASA
This data visualization illustrates changes in the amount of carbon stored in organic matter on land, called terrestrial carbon stock changes, from 2015 to 2020. Activities such as improved land stewardship and deforestation, which is more extensive in the tropics than other regions, affect these stock changes. This version has a dark ocean.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizers
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- Helen-Nicole Kostis (USRA) [Lead]
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Scientist
- Brendan Byrne (NASA/JPL) [Lead]
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Technical support
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Papers
This visualization is based on the following papers:- Byrne, B., Baker, D. F., Basu, S., Bertolacci, M., Bowman, K. W., Carroll, D., Chatterjee, A., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Cressie, N., Crisp, D., Crowell, S., Deng, F., Deng, Z., Deutscher, N. M., Dubey, M., Feng, S., García, O., Griffith, D. W. T., Herkommer, B., Hu, L., Jacobson, A. R., Janardanan, R., Jeong, S., Johnson, M. S., Jones, D. B. A., Kivi, R., Liu, J., Liu, Z., Maksyutov, S., Miller, J. B., Miller, S. M., Morino, I., Notholt, J., Oda, T., O’Dell, C. W., Oh, Y.-S., Ohyama, H., Patra, P. K., Peiro, H., Petri, C., Philip, S., Pollard, D. F., Poulter, B., Remaud, M., Schuh, A., Sha, M. K., Shiomi, K., Strong, K., Sweeney, C., Té, Y., Tian, H., Velazco, V. A., Vrekoussis, M., Warneke, T., Worden, J. R., Wunch, D., Yao, Y., Yun, J., Zammit-Mangion, A., and Zeng, N.: National CO2 budgets (2015–2020) inferred from atmospheric CO2 observations in support of the Global Stocktake, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, ttps://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-963-2023
Datasets used in this visualization
Pilot top-down CO2 Budget constrained by the v10 OCO-2 MIP Version 1
Credit: Pilot top-down CO2 Budget constrained by the v10 OCO-2 MIP Version 1 Byrne, B., Baker, D. F., Basu, S., Bertolacci, M., Bowman, K. W., Carroll, D., Chatterjee, A., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Cressie, N., Crisp, D., Crowell, S., Deng, F., Deng, Z., Deutscher, N. M., Dubey, M. K., Feng, S., García, O. E., Herkommer, B., Hu, L., Jacobson, A. R., Janardanan, R., Jeong, S., Johnson, M. S., Jones, D. B. A., Kivi, R., Liu, J., Liu, Z., Maksyutov, S., Miller, J. B., Miller, S. M., Morino, I., Notholt, J., Oda, T., O’Dell, C. W., Oh, Y.-S., Ohyama, H., Patra, P. K., Peiro, H., Petri, C., Philip, S., Pollard, D. F., Poulter, B., Remaud, M., Schuh, A., Sha, M. K., Shiomi, K., Strong, K., Sweeney, C., Té, Y., Tian, H., Velazco, V. A., Vrekoussis, M., Warneke, T., Worden, J. R., Wunch, D., Yao, Y., Yun, J., Zammit-Mangion, A., and Zeng, N. https://doi.org/10.48588/npf6-sw92
Dataset can be found at: https://doi.org/10.48588/npf6-sw92
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