Forest in Brazil

Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 25 July 2023, the image shows tropical forest in the state of Pará in Brazil.

Zoom in to explore this image at its full 10 m resolution.

Tropical forests are clearly critical to Earth’s climate system, but understanding exactly how much carbon they absorb from the atmosphere, store and release is tricky to calculate, not least because measuring and reporting methods vary. Research, published in the Carbon Balance and Management journal, describes why there can be a gap between carbon flux estimates based on data from Earth observing satellites and country estimates given in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

The paper highlights the example of Brazil where estimates using Earth observation data indicated that, between 2001 and 2020, the country as a whole was as a net carbon sink. This contrasts to the country’s inventory, which showed human activity resulted in forests in Brazil being a net carbon source.

A key reason why there can be discrepancies between datasets derived from satellites compared to what is reported in inventories can be linked to whether or not a piece of land is considered as managed by humans.

Read full story: Minding the gap on tropical forest carbon