An international project aimed to develop a complete picture of the global carbon cycle has opened its first UK office at the University of East Anglia.

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) provides up-to-date scientific data of carbon emissions and helps provide better estimates of global carbon budgets. The UK office located within the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research will support the annual publication of this budget, which shows global carbon emissions for the previous year and how they are divided between land, ocean and atmosphere.

Prof Corinne Le Quere, Tyndall Centre Director and Co-Chair of the GCP said: “This is a significant step in improving the quality of the data and reducing uncertainty in the science. Ultimately, our knowledge of global carbon cycles could be such that the weakening of a carbon sink would be precisely located and monitored and act as a kind of early-warning system.”

The GCP reported that global carbon emissions have reached a record 10 billion tonnes following a 50% rise over the last two decades.