Terrestrial full carbon account for Russia: revised uncertainty estimates and their role in a bottom-up/top-down accounting exercise

Our research addresses the need to close the gap between bottom-up and top-down accounting of net atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Russia is sufficiently large to be resolved in a bottom-up/top-down accounting exercise, as well as being a signatory state of the Kyoto Protocol. We resolve Russia’s atmospheric CO₂ balance (1988–1992) in terms of four major land-use/cover units and eight bioclimatic zones. On the basis of our results we conclude that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) must revise its carbon balance for northern Asia. We find a less optimistic, although more realistic, bottom-up versus top-down match for northern Asia than the IPCC authors. Nonetheless, in spite of the larger uncertainties involved, our research shows that (1) there is indeed an added value in linking bottom-up and top-down carbon accounting because our dual-constrained regional carbon balance is incomparably more rigorous; and that (2) the need persists for more atmospheric measurements, including atmospheric inversion experiments, over Russia.