Every year, scientists at AOML participate in the international effort led by the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute in developing the annual Global Carbon Budget Report, an assessment of global carbon emissions and the progress towards achieving the climate goals set by the 2016 Paris Agreement. The 2024 Global Carbon Budget Report now indicates global emissions have continued to rise – as we’re falling behind on international targets.
Scientists at AOML and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) lead global efforts to quantify the exchange of carbon between the ocean and the atmosphere – and how it might be changing.
It’s like a personal finance budget – where carbon is the currency. Natural sinks like the ocean that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are the reliable, somewhat expected sources of income. Natural carbon emissions are the expected annual debt payments. NO fun but unavoidable. Anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions are the spending that we can only afford so much of without significant consequences. And the climate goals set by the Paris Agreement are how we avoid the irreversible consequences of overspending or adding too much heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
The Global carbon cycle showing the uptake and emission of carbon into the atmosphere. See story here
Carbon sinks (i.e. the income) have been offsetting these consequences since the human-caused emissions of carbon began accelerating (i.e. “discretionary spending”) with the Industrial Revolution in the 1750s. However, studies now suggest the Earth’s largest carbon sink – the global ocean – may be weakening.
Underway pCO2 system measuring the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2). In the surface waters and atmosphere onboard a cruise ship.
Through the international Ships of Opportunity Program, scientists at AOML are outfitting cruise ships, cargo and scientific research vessels as well as moorings across the world with instruments measuring carbon levels in the surface waters and the atmosphere above it to monitor the amount of carbon crossing the interface between the two. A program that started in the 2000s, researchers are now able to track major changes in the amount of carbon taken up by the ocean globally and over decades.
By collecting these crucial observations of the surface ocean carbon uptake, AOML scientists play a pivotal role in identifying how the ocean buffers the impacts of climate change. The report on the Global Carbon Budget lets us know what we can afford to emit before the consequences of spending become irreversible.
Reaching an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperatures – above what the average temperature was in preindustrial times (early 1700s) – is the threshold scientists agree will lead to the most severe impacts of climate change. Currently, it’s projected a 50% likelihood global temperatures will frequently exceed that threshold by 2031.
In 2023, anthropogenic carbon emissions reached 36.8 billion metric tons. In 2024, the newly released global carbon budget report projects human emissions of carbon from fossil fuels will reach an estimated 37.4 billion metric tons released to the atmosphere by end of year.
“It is encouraging that global emission rates are not increasing as fast as in the past. We are getting to a point where the industrial nations are reducing emissions. We are making progress, but not nearly fast enough,” said Rik Wanninkhof, a Senior Scientist at AOML and author on the 2024 Global Carbon Budget report.
See the full NOAA Press-release on 2024 report here: As pollution increases, world falls further behind climate targets – NOAA Research
To learn more about the 2024 Global Carbon Budget Report: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2024-519/