Articles | Volume 13, issue 17
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4877-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4877-2016
Research article
 | 
06 Sep 2016
Research article |  | 06 Sep 2016

Re-evaluating the 1940s CO2 plateau

Ana Bastos, Philippe Ciais, Jonathan Barichivich, Laurent Bopp, Victor Brovkin, Thomas Gasser, Shushi Peng, Julia Pongratz, Nicolas Viovy, and Cathy M. Trudinger

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The ice-core record shows a stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 in the 1940s, despite continued emissions from fossil fuel burning and land-use change (LUC). We use up-to-date reconstructions of the CO2 sources and sinks over the 20th century to evaluate whether these capture the CO2 plateau and to test the previously proposed hypothesis. Both strong terrestrial sink, possibly due to LUC not fully accounted for in the records, and enhanced oceanic uptake are necessary to explain this stall.
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