Journal Article
Dominant role of the non‐forest woody vegetation in the post 2015/16 El Niño tropical carbon recovery
Lei Fan; Tianxiang Cui; Jean‐Pierre Wigneron; Philippe Ciais; Stephen Sitch; Martin Brandt; Xin Li; Shuli Niu; Xiangming Xiao; Jérome Chave; Chaoyang Wu; Wei Li; Wenping Yuan; Zanpin Xing; Xiaojun Li; Mengjia Wang; Xiangzhuo Liu; Xiuzhi Chen; Yuanwei Qin; Hui Yang; Qiang Tang; Yuechen Li; Mingguo Ma; Rasmus Fensholt
Global Change Biology · Vol. 30, Issue 7 · 2024
Abstract
The extreme dry and hot 2015/16 El Niño episode caused large losses in tropical live aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks. Followed by climatic conditions conducive to high vegetation productivity since 2016, tropical AGC are expected to recover from large losses during the El Niño episode; however, the recovery rate and its spatial distribution remain unknown. Here, we used low‐frequency microwave satellite data to track AGC changes, and showed that tropical AGC stocks returned to pre‐El Niño levels by the end of 2020, resulting in an AGC sink of Pg C year −1 during 2014–2020. This sink was dominated by strong AGC increases ( Pg C year −1 ) in non‐forest woody vegetation during 2016–2020, compensating the forest AGC losses attributed to the El Niño event, forest loss, and degradation. Our findings highlight that non‐forest woody vegetation is an increasingly important contributor to interannual to decadal variability in the global carbon cycle.