Nature Climate Change (2024) Cite this article Metrics Tropical aboveground carbon is a crucial yet complex component of the terrestrial carbon budget. Here, remote observations reveal annual losses (from fire emissions and forest disturbances) and post-loss recovery of tropical aboveground carbon for 2010–2020, which overall resulted in tropical lands being a moderate carbon sink. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access options Access through your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription $29.99 / 30 days cancel any time Learn more Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $209.00 per year only $17.42 per issue Learn more Buy this article Purchase on SpringerLink Instant access to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Additional access options: Log in Learn about institutional subscriptions Read our FAQs Contact customer support References Harris, N. L. et al. Baseline map of carbon emissions from deforestation in tropical regions. Science 336 , 1573–1576 (2012). This paper reports satellite-derived estimates of gross carbon emissions due to deforestation across tropical regions. Article CAS Google Scholar Fan, L. et al. Satellite-observed pantropical carbon dynamics. Nat. Plants 5 , 944–951 (2019). This paper reports aboveground biomass carbon changes derived from L-VOD. Article CAS Google Scholar Li, X. et al. The first global soil moisture and vegetation optical depth product retrieved from fused SMOS and SMAP L-band observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 282 , 113272 (2022). This paper reports the potential application of fused SMOS and SMAP L-band observations for aboveground biomass monitoring. Article Google Scholar Yang, H. et al. Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade. Nat. Geosci. 16 , 886–892 (2023). This […]