NEWS AND VIEWS
12 December 2025 Revised estimates of CO 2 sources and sinks improve global carbon accounting Updated estimates of the worldwide sources and sinks of anthropogenic carbon dioxide provide a firmer basis for monitoring climate action. By Galen A. McKinley 0 Galen A. McKinley Galen A. McKinley is in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University New York, New York 10027, USA. View author publications PubMed Google Scholar
Emissions of carbon dioxide produced by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are the main cause of global climate change. Fortunately, only about half of these CO 2 emissions remain in the atmosphere; the remainder are taken up by the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere. However, for many years, scientists’ mean estimates for the global sources and sinks of anthropogenic CO 2 have not precisely matched the observed rate of increase in atmospheric CO 2 levels. Writing in Nature, Friedlingstein et al.1 re-evaluate these estimates, making adjustments that balance the global carbon budget — increasing confidence that this approach can be used to track trends in Earth’s carbon cycle.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03981-x
References Friedlingstein, P. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09802-5 (2025). Raupach, M. R. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 10288–10293 (2007). Friedlingstein, P. et al. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-659 (2025). Friedlingstein, P. et al. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 17, 965–1039 (2025). Keeling, R. F. & Manning, A. C. in Treatise on Geochemistry (eds Holland, H. & Turekian, K.) Vol. 5, 385–404 (Elsevier, 2014). Tohjima, Y., Mukai, H., Machida, T., Hoshina, Y. & Nakaoka, S.-I. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 19, 9269–9285 (2019). Peters, G. P. et al. Nature Clim. Change 7, 848–850 (2017). Dong, Y., Bakker, D. C. E. & Landschützer, P. Geophys. Res. Lett. 51, e2024GL108502 (2024). Svoboda, M. et al. AGU Adv. 6, e2025AV002063 (2025). Download references
Competing Interests G.A.M is a co-author of the 2025 and 2023 Global Carbon Budgets.
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