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Monitoring atmospheric fossil fuel emissions using radiocarbon and global atmospheric simulations with a transport and inverse modeling system
Independent monitoring and apportioning of CO2 emissions is crucial for the verification of greenhouse gas reductions targeted by international agreements designed for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Radiocarbon (14C), found as a fractional isotope of CO2, can be used as a key tracer for fossil-derived CO2 and thus aid in the accurate apportioning of measured CO2 that arises from fossil fuel sources compared with other emissions sources. As part of the Horizon Europe CORSO project, we expanded a dedicated atmospheric transport modeling and variational inversion system to include radiocarbon in order to assess fossil CO2 emissions estimates at the global scale. The system is based on the assimilation of CO2 and 14CO2 measurements that are collected using central-European atmospheric ICOS stations combined with global background stations. The modeling and inversion framework is based on the Community Inversion Framework (CIF) coupled to the LMDZ global transport model with fluxes and isotopic signatures from terrestrial, oceanic, fossil fuel, nuclear, and cosmogenic sources. We conduct a multi-decadal analysis of the CO2 and 14CO2 emissions derived from this framework.