Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Tagged by Source for Science-on-a-Sphere

  • Released Monday, April 22, 2024
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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most prevalent greenhouse gas driving global climate change. However, its increase in the atmosphere would be even more rapid without land and ocean carbon sinks, which collectively absorb about half of human emissions every year. Advanced computer modeling techniques in NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office allow us to disentangle the influences of sources and sinks and to better understand where carbon is coming from and going to.

This is equirectangular imagery intended for projection on NOAA Science-on-a-Sphere globe.

This visualization shows the CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021, split into four major contributors: fossil fuels in orange, burning biomass in red, land ecosystems in green, and the ocean in blue. The dots on the surface also show how atmospheric carbon dioxide is also being absorbed by land ecosystems in green and the ocean in blue. Though the land and oceans are each carbon sinks in a global sense, individual locations can be sources at different times.

This visualization only shows the fossil fuel component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021.

This visualization only shows the burning biomass component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021.

This visualization only shows the land ecosystems component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021.

This visualization shows the land component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021, in addition to showing the land surface absorption from the same time period.

This visualization only shows the ocean component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021.

This visualization shows the ocean component of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021, in addition to showing the ocean surface absorption from the same time period.

This visualization only shows the land and ocean surface absorption of CO2 from Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021.

This image provides the global land borders used in the animations above. Some video producers may prefer to overlay this on top of the other animations to highlight geographic points of interest.

This image provides the global land borders used in the animations above. Some video producers may prefer to overlay this on top of the other animations to highlight geographic points of interest.

Sample color bar for the Science-on-a-Sphere legend system.SOS label file: taggedCO2_labels.txt

Sample color bar for the Science-on-a-Sphere legend system.

SOS label file: taggedCO2_labels.txt

This is an interactive 3D model! Swipe with one finger to rotate the model.
This is an interactive 3D model! Click and drag to rotate the model.

This data visualization shows the accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere over the course of one year (2021). Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels (orange) and biomass burning (red) make up the majority of emissions, while plants (green) and the ocean (blue) both emit and absorb carbon dioxide—sometimes acting as sources (shown as gas) and sometimes as sinks (shown as dots). The land and ocean collectively absorb (sink) about half of human-related emissions every year. Advanced computer modeling techniques at NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office allow us to view the distribution of CO2 sources and CO2 sinks to better understand how carbon moves through Earth’s systems.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Related papers

Weir, B., Ott, L. E., Collatz, G. J., Kawa, S. R., Poulter, B., Chatterjee, A., Oda, T., and Pawson, S.: Bias-correcting carbon fluxes derived from land-surface satellite data for retrospective and near-real-time assimilation systems, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9609–9628, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9609-2021, 2021.

Datasets used

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This page was originally published on Monday, April 22, 2024.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 2:20 PM EDT.