Tropical forests, although older, have been extensively reduced by deforestation, forest fires and droughts.
This is the conclusion reached by an international research team, led by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, which mapped annual changes in global forest biomass between 2010 and 2019. “The carbon balance of biomass results from gains due to plant growth and increased forest cover and losses due to harvest, deforestation, degradation, background tree mortality and natural disturbances,” the scientists note in a statement on their findings.
Globally, they report, terrestrial biomass carbon stocks increased within the studied nine years by some 500 million metric tons of carbon annually. “The main contributors to the global carbon sink are boreal and temperate forests, while tropical forests have become small carbon sources because of deforestation and tree mortality following periods of repeated drought,” they explain.