Chinese researchers call for increase in advanced carbon observation stations

Chinese researchers called for setting up more high-standard carbon dioxide observation stations across the country to improve the estimation accuracy in determining terrestrial carbon sink levels, according to the Science and Technology Daily on Thursday.

The researchers suggested figuring out the optimal location of 52 new stations, in addition to the eight existing stations, and forming a ground station observation network to enhance atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measurement efforts and abilities.

Their study showed that there is an urgent need to add more observation stations in southeastern, northeastern and northern regions of the country, as well as on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau where vegetation productivity is high during the growing season.

A total of 60 observation stations could reduce carbon sink estimation uncertainty to 200 million tonnes per year, said the report.

Terrestrial ecosystem carbon sink is important for China's goal and pledge to achieve carbon neutrality, said Wang Yilong, associate researcher at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It is crucial to clarify the size and spatial-temporal distribution of carbon sink in terrestrial ecosystems for formulating policies and measures to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

Atmospheric inversion is a key method to evaluate terrestrial carbon sink based on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration observation data and an atmospheric transport model, combined with human carbon emission inventory. When assimilating observation data, the atmospheric inversion is expected to improve the accuracy of estimating terrestrial carbon sink.