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Net carbon uptake has kept pace with increasing fossil-fuel emissions

Roughly half of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions remain in the atmosphere, but whether this airborne fraction is changing has been unclear, partly because the emissions from deforestation are uncertain. We used proxy data on deforestation emissions over the past six decades to show that the airborne fraction has decreased.

This is a summary of: van Marle, M. J. E. et al. New land-use-change emissions indicate a declining CO2 airborne fraction. Nature 603, 450–454 (2022).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00661-y

Updates & Corrections

  • Update 18 September 2023: Information has been added about the retraction of the paper reported in this Research briefing.

References

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