A new method of carbon budget analysis with application to present and paleo atmospheric concentration data sets

Abstract

We introduce a new method for analyzing the carbon budget using box models and a mass balance approach. The method describes the net flow of carbon between the atmosphere and other reservoirs. The method assumes that the data can be explained by having the carbon move in and out of the atmosphere through two reservoirs, one consisting of isotopically light carbon (biotic) and the other consisting of isotopically heavy carbon (abiotic). The systems are underdetermined from the data, so the Occam's razor approach is to assume that the least amount of carbon moves between the atmosphere and the reservoirs. As data from known sources and sinks are added to the model, one can determine the constraints on the unknown sources and sinks. To illustrate the method, we analyze data from the Mauna Loa Observatory and data from Antarctic ice cores.