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CLIMATE CHANGE ECOLOGY

The declining tropical carbon sink

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 727–728 (2021)Cite this article

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Observational data from long-term monitoring plots show that the carbon sink of remaining, undisturbed African and Amazonian tropical rainforest is declining. A study now finds that simulations from Earth system models cannot reproduce this decline.

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Fig. 1: The in- and outflow of water in a tank as an analogy for the declining carbon sink observed in tropical forests in the last three decades.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Anja Rammig

  2. Center for Meteorological and Climatic Research Applied to Agriculture - CEPAGRI, University of Campinas – UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil

    David M. Lapola

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  1. Anja Rammig
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  2. David M. Lapola
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Correspondence to Anja Rammig or David M. Lapola.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Rammig, A., Lapola, D.M. The declining tropical carbon sink. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 727–728 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01135-1

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