Episode 56: Corinne Le Quéré

https://forecastpod.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/episode_56_corinne_le_quere.mp3

Deciphering the global carbon cycle is as fascinating as it is difficult. There are carbon fluxes in and out of the planet, all over the place, and at all time scales. Observational gaps are numerous and gaping. Uncertainties on country level emissions are increasing. Yet the global carbon budget is perhaps THE central bit of knowledge that society must have, if an informed decision on carbon mitigation is ever to be made. Corinne Le Quéré from the University of East Anglia is working to quantify — with enormous effort — just such a budget. You might think it’s like balancing a checkbook, and you’d be right. But only if your checkbook includes investments with unknown and time-variable interest rates, and frequent, untraceable withdrawals. As Corrine tells Mike, in spite of the massive challenges, the carbon cycle community is making tremendous progress in pinning down the many elusive processes that ultimately control the main variable of interest: atmospheric CO2 levels.

Music: Hallon by Christian Bjoerklund CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.