Scope
The Global Carbon Atlas is an online platform to explore, visualize and interpret global and regional carbon data arising from both human activities and natural processes. The graphics and data sources are made available in the belief that their wide dissemination will lead to new knowledge and better-informed decisions to limit and cope with human-induced climate change.
The Global Carbon Atlas is a community effort under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project based on the contributions of many research institutions and individual scientists around the world who make available observations, models, and interpretation skills.

Components

The Atlas has three components with objectives and information relevant to different users:

• OUTREACH takes you on a journey tracing the history and possible future relationship between carbon emissions and human development. It is intended as an educational experience for the broad public while utilizing robust and up-to-date observations and modeling from climate change science.
• EMISSIONS is a tool to explore, display and download data and figures on carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, cement production and land use change over multiple decades, including their drivers. Information is available at the global, regional and national levels with tools that allow comparison, ranking and to visualize changes over time. Data from Contributors.
• RESEARCH provides tools to create custom global and regional maps and time series of carbon fluxes from research models and datasets. Data are contributed by many research institutions (see Contributors). This component will further advance collaborative international research on the functioning of the carbon cycle and its interactions with the climate system.

Updates

The Global Carbon Atlas was first released in November 2013. The Atlas team will release two types of updates. Existing datasets will be updated with version control as new years are added or new data and models are available or improved. In addition, the Global Carbon Atlas will bring new datasets to include other carbon fluxes, carbon stocks and carbon budgets at global and regional scales. Changes in datasets and new improvements in the Global Carbon Atlas will be described under “Latest News & highlights” at the front page.

Feedback and Involvement

The Global Carbon Atlas is a community research effort intended to serve a broad spectrum of users. The Atlas team seeks feedback on the existing tools and applications, ways to improve them and expand. To provide feedback, please contact the Atlas team via email (contact@globalcarbonatlas.org) or communicate issues of broader interest to the community through Facebook and Twitter. The Atlas, initially made possible by a philanthropic grant from the BNP Paribas Foundation through its Climate & Biodiversity initiative to the Global Carbon Project, requires the involvement and support of the broader user community for its long-term viability.