Changes in global terrestrial live biomass over the 21st century

Liang Xu; Sassan S Saatchi; Yan Yang; Yifan Yu; Julia Pongratz; A Anthony Bloom; Kevin Bowman; John Worden; Junjie Liu; Yi Yin; Grant Domke; Ronald E McRoberts; Christopher Woodall; Gert-Jan Nabuurs; Sergio de-Miguel; Michael Keller; Nancy Harris; Sean Maxwell; David Schimel

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe9829

Changes in global terrestrial live biomass over the 21st century

Sci Adv. 2021 Jul 2;7(27):eabe9829. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe9829. Print 2021 Jul.

Authors

Liang Xu¹, Sassan S Saatchi^{2

3}, Yan Yang¹, Yifan Yu¹, Julia Pongratz^{4

5}, A Anthony Bloom¹, Kevin Bowman¹, John Worden¹, Junjie Liu¹, Yi Yin^{1

6}, Grant Domke⁷, Ronald E McRoberts⁸, Christopher Woodall⁹, Gert-Jan Nabuurs¹⁰, Sergio de-Miguel^{11

12}, Michael Keller^{1

13}, Nancy Harris¹⁴, Sean Maxwell¹⁵, David Schimel¹

Affiliations

¹ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
² Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA. saatchi@jpl.nasa.gov.
³ Institute of Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Luisenstr. 37, 80333 Munich, Germany.
⁵ Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstr. 53, Hamburg, Germany.
⁶ Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
⁷ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, St. Paul, MN, USA.
⁸ CFANS Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
⁹ U.S, Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Durham, NH, USA.
¹⁰ Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands.
¹¹ Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.
¹² Joint Research Unit CTFC - AGROTECNIO, Solsona, Lleida, Spain.
¹³ USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
¹⁴ World Resources Institute, 10 G Street NE, Washington, DC, USA.
¹⁵ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Abstract

Live woody vegetation is the largest reservoir of biomass carbon, with its restoration considered one of the most effective natural climate solutions. However, terrestrial carbon fluxes remain the largest uncertainty in the global carbon cycle. Here, we develop spatially explicit estimates of carbon stock changes of live woody biomass from 2000 to 2019 using measurements from ground, air, and space. We show that live biomass has removed 4.9 to 5.5 PgC year^-1 from the atmosphere, offsetting 4.6 ± 0.1 PgC year^-1 of gross emissions from disturbances and adding substantially (0.23 to 0.88 PgC year^-1) to the global carbon stocks. Gross emissions and removals in the tropics were four times larger than temperate and boreal ecosystems combined. Although live biomass is responsible for more than 80% of gross terrestrial fluxes, soil, dead organic matter, and lateral transport may play important roles in terrestrial carbon sink.

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