Abstract
The uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) by terrestrial ecosystems is critical for moderating climate change1. To provide a ground-based long-term assessment of the contribution of forests to terrestrial CO2 uptake, we synthesized in situ forest data from boreal, temperate and tropical biomes spanning three decades. We found that the carbon sink in global forests was steady, at 3.6 ± 0.4 Pg C yr−1 in the 1990s and 2000s, and 3.5 ± 0.4 Pg C yr−1 in the 2010s. Despite this global stability, our analysis revealed some major biome-level changes. Carbon sinks have increased in temperate (+30 ± 5%) and tropical regrowth (+29 ± 8%) forests owing to increases in forest area, but they decreased in boreal (−36 ± 6%) and tropical intact (−31 ± 7%) forests, as a result of intensified disturbances and losses in intact forest area, respectively. Mass-balance studies indicate that the global land carbon sink has increased2, implying an increase in the non-forest-land carbon sink. The global forest sink is equivalent to almost half of fossil-fuel emissions (7.8 ± 0.4 Pg C yr−1 in 1990–2019). However, two-thirds of the benefit from the sink has been negated by tropical deforestation (2.2 ± 0.5 Pg C yr−1 in 1990–2019). Although the global forest sink has endured undiminished for three decades, despite regional variations, it could be weakened by ageing forests, continuing deforestation and further intensification of disturbance regimes1. To protect the carbon sink, land management policies are needed to limit deforestation, promote forest restoration and improve timber-harvesting practices1,3.
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Data availability
The data used for synthesis and analysis are derived from more-detailed measurements and are available in spreadsheets with embedded formulae for access at https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2023-0051. Our results can be replicated using these spreadsheets. The estimates used for tables and figures of the main text and Extended Data are also in the data repository. The repository also includes original measurements for a few countries and the source data information for others, along with DOIs and websites for accessing original data. Because policies for data sharing vary from country to country, some sources include original measurement data from sampling with fully open access, while some include only aggregated data. Most original data are publicly available through direct access, but in a few cases for which the data are not publicly available, the data can be requested from the regional authors. Full descriptions of regional datasets and estimation approaches, including links, are provided in the Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with the paper.
Change history
06 August 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07897-w
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Acknowledgements
We thank G. Domke for information on interior Alaska; K. McCullough for making the map in Fig. 1; S. P. Wang and J. P. Brown for help with statistical analyses for Supplementary Fig. 1; and H. F. Hoen and A. Nordin for leading data compilation for Norway and Sweden, respectively. For supporting this work, we thank the US Forest Service and the Embassy Science Program (to Y.P.); Woodwell Climate Research Center (R.A.B., R.A.H. and A.C.); the European Research Council (advanced grant TFORCES GA291585), the Royal Society (International collaboration award ICA\R1\180100), NERC (NE/S011811/1 ARBOLES and NE/X014347/1 AMSINK) and the World Resources Institute (Sustaining Tropical Forest Monitoring) (O.L.P); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 31988102) (J.F.); JSPS KAKENHI (grant JP21H03580) (A.I. and S.H.); JSPS KAKENHI (JP21H05318) (A.I.); European Union projects H2020-Verify and H2020 Superb (G.-J.N. and B.L.); the European Space Agency (CCI Biomass 4000123662/18/I-NB) and the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (EYE-CLIMA 10108139) (A.S. and D.S.); and the US Agency for International Development (grant MTO 069018). This study is a product of the global forest carbon working group.
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Y.P. and R.A.B. were lead authors, synthesized the data and drafted the manuscript; O.L.P, R.A.H. and J.F. provided critical concepts and substantial editing; Y.P., R.A.B., O.L.P., R.A.H., J.F., P.E.K., H.K., W.A.K., A.I., S.L.L., G.-J.N. and A.S. contributed primary datasets and analyses, and led regional estimates and writing of the Methods; S.H., B.L., A.C., D.S. and D.M. contributed regional estimates and methodology documentation. All authors contributed in writing, discussions or comments.
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Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 1 Why have tropical intact forests lost carbon stocks yet also remained a carbon sink?.
From 1990 to 2019, tropical intact forests that remain intact continued to sequester carbon by 32.0 Pg C (Table 1). Deforestation reduced the area of tropical intact forests by 467 Mha (containing C stocks of 149.4 Pg C). About 45% of C stocks in the deforested lands was emitted to the atmosphere shortly after the deforestation (mainly due to the slash-and-burning practice for agricultural land conversion), 36% was transferred to other land-uses such as agricultural lands (mostly as soil carbon), 17% was lost in processing harvested timber such as via wood shavings or stored in short-lived products such as fuelwood and paper, and 2% was retained in harvested wood products (HWP) such as long-lived construction materials. Because the remaining intact forests had provided a 32.0 Pg C sink, the net C stock loss from the intact forests was 117.5 Pg C. Credits: forest canopy, iStock.com/Rhet Ayers Butler - Mongabay; deforested area, Kids Encyclopedia Facts, CC BY 3.0; livestock, iStock.com/edsongrandisoli; industrial woodchipper, iStock.com/EBREHИЙ XaИTOHOB; stack of logs, iStock.com/Pandavector; cabin, Clker-Free-Vector-Images.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Forest areas, carbon stocks, and carbon stock changes in the global forest and forest biomes.
(a) forest areas; (b) carbon stocks; (c) carbon stock densities; (d) carbon stocks by pool; (e) carbon stock change (sinks); and (f) carbon stock change per hectare. The error bars represent standard deviations. For (a) we assumed 10% uncertainty in forest areas due to lack of documented uncertainty in remotely-sensed data; for (d) the uncertainty values of individual carbon pools were not included with most data sources, so we assumed that deadwood, litter and soil carbon pools have twice the uncertainty of the biomass pool, and estimated the uncertainty values of the individual carbon pools from the total carbon stock uncertainty. Uncertainties in the remaining charts are calculated based on data in Extended Data Table 2 and Extended Data Table 3.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Carbon sinks and sources in global forests.
The C sink and source (Pg C yr−1) are expressed as the mean annual rate across the full three-decadal period 1990 to 2019. Positive values represent carbon sinks, while negative (red) values carbon sources. Because carbon fluxes estimated in temperate and boreal forests were based on the “stock change” method, which included carbon gains and losses (from temporarily harvested forests), the C sink estimated was a net sink. Because carbon fluxes estimated in tropical forests were based on the “flux” method, C sinks estimated were gross sinks. Tropical deforestation emissions were estimated by a book-keeping model. The tropical forest net sink, therefore, was the balance of C sinks and emissions (see Methods for concepts and details). Credit: forest fire, iStock/Blueastro.
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Pan, Y., Birdsey, R.A., Phillips, O.L. et al. The enduring world forest carbon sink. Nature 631, 563–569 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07602-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07602-x
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