Decadal sink-source shifts of forest aboveground carbon since 1988

Abstract

Forest ecosystems are vital to the global carbon cycle, yet their long-term aboveground carbon (AGC) dynamics remain uncertain. Here, we integrate multi-source satellite observations with probabilistic deep learning models to reconstruct a harmonized, uncertainty-aware global forest AGC record from 1988 to 2021 at 0.25-deg. We find that, although global forests sequestered 6.2 PgC, moist tropical and boreal forests have progressively transitioned toward carbon sources since the early 2000s. This shift coincides with a strengthening negative correlation between tropical AGC variability and atmospheric CO2 growth rates (r = -0.63 in 2011-2021), suggesting tropical forests increasingly modulate the global carbon cycle. Notably, in the Brazilian Amazon, the contribution of intact forests to the year-to-year variations in AGC losses increased from 33% in the 1990s to 76% in the 2010s, surpassing that of deforested areas (from 60% to 13%). Our findings highlight the vulnerability of carbon stocks in key biomes and provide a benchmark to track emerging sink-source shifts under anthropogenic climate change.