Land-use change and land-use change and forestry data

[JackWRI]

I downloaded information for LULUCF between 1990 & 2005 for specific
South American countries and then noticed that all the figures for
that period are the same i.e. the CO2 emissions for 1990 = 1998 = 2002
etc; surely this cannot be accurate.

[CAIT]

Unfortunately, in our efforts to provide users with the most recent
(2005) and robust estimates of emissions from LULUCF, we’ve gone with
totals reported in the most recent World Development Report (published
by the World Bank). These totals are annual averages from 1990-2005,
so the numbers you downloaded are representative of that 15 year time
span. We have some additional technical documentation here -
http://cait.wri.org/cait.php?page=background&from=yearly&mode=view,
though admittedly this is a bit confusing. We’ll try and clarify with
our next round of updates.

Some annual estimates (also by Houghton) are available at a regional
level here: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/landuse/houghton/houghton.html.