An international effort to quantify regional carbon fluxes

The international carbon cycle research community is currently coordinating the largest, most comprehensive assessment it has ever undertaken: the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP; http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/reccap). The objective is to establish the mean carbon balance and change over the period 1990–2009 for all subcontinents and ocean basins. The global coverage will provide, for the first time, opportunities to link regional budgets with the global carbon budget. Regional details on or insights into processes driving fluxes have not, to date, been incorporated into efforts addressing the global carbon budget [Canadell et al., 2007; Le Quéré et al., 2009]. The consistency check between the sum of regional fluxes and the global budget will be a unique measure of the level of confidence there is in scaling carbon budgets up and down.