Nature Climate Change, Published online: 12 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02115-x
Tropical aboveground biomass carbon is a crucial, yet complex, component of the terrestrial C budget. Here remote observations demonstrate that fire emissions and post-fire recovery in non-forested African biomes dominate the interannual variability of aboveground biomass carbon, which acts as a moderate net C sink.