What is it about?
This study uses six pioneer Earth‑system‑model prediction systems with an interactive carbon cycle to reconstruct past air‑sea and air‑land CO₂ fluxes and to forecast near‑term CO₂ fluxes and atmospheric CO₂ growth. Atmospheric CO₂ can be predicted up to 2 years in advance, mainly limited by uncertainty and processes governing air-land CO₂ fluxes.
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Why is it important?
Reliable attribution and prediction of CO₂ increases to human emissions versus natural variability is crucial for evaluating climate‑policy effectiveness and for early warnings of carbon‑cycle feedbacks.
Perspectives
The demonstrated 2‑year skill in predicting atmospheric CO₂ growth shows that initialized Earth system models with a closed carbon budget become a routine reconstruction and forecast tool, with further work needed to enhance land‑flux predictability.
Hongmei Li
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Multimodel Reconstructions and Predictions of the CO2 Fluxes and Atmospheric CO2 Variations, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, June 2026, American Meteorological Society,
DOI: 10.1175/bams-d-25-0139.1.
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