Articles | Volume 21, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021
Research article
 | 
01 Dec 2021
Research article |  | 01 Dec 2021

Was Australia a sink or source of CO2 in 2015? Data assimilation using OCO-2 satellite measurements

Yohanna Villalobos, Peter J. Rayner, Jeremy D. Silver, Steven Thomas, Vanessa Haverd, Jürgen Knauer, Zoë M. Loh, Nicholas M. Deutscher, David W. T. Griffith, and David F. Pollard

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Cited articles

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Short summary
Semi-arid ecosystems such as those in Australia are evolving and might play an essential role in the future of climate change. We use carbon dioxide concentrations derived from the OCO-2 satellite instrument and a regional transport model to understand if Australia was a carbon sink or source of CO2 in 2015. Our research's main findings suggest that Australia acted as a carbon sink of about −0.41 ± 0.08 petagrams of carbon in 2015, driven primarily by savanna and sparsely vegetated ecosystems.
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