Nature – Yang et al. (2023): Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade
Hui Yang, Philippe Ciais, Frédéric Frappart, Xiaojun Li, Martin Brandt, Rasmus Fensholt, Lei Fan, Sassan Saatchi, Simon Besnard, Zhu Deng, Simon Bowring, Jean-Pierre Wigneron IN: Nature Geoscience 16, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01274-4
The authors generated global maps of annual live vegetation biomass using L-band microwave vegetation optical depth. Globally, biomass carbon stocks increased from 2010 to 2019 at a rate of 0.50 ± 0.20 PgC yr−1 with a year-to-year variability, closely mirroring the observations of the global atmospheric CO2 growth rate. The main contributors to the global carbon sink are boreal and temperate forests, while wet tropical forests are small carbon sources, from deforestation and agriculture-related disturbances.