Net Forest Carbon Flux

Data are the product of modeling and thus have an inherent degree of error and uncertainty. Users are strongly encouraged to read and fully comprehend the metadata and other available documentation prior to data use.

• Net flux reflects the total over the model period of 2001-2023, not an annual time series from which a trend can be derived. Thus, values must be divided by 23 to calculate average annual net flux.
• Uncertainty is higher in gross removals than emissions, particularly driven by uncertainty in removal factors. These uncertainties are propagated to the uncertainty in net flux.
• Values are applicable to forest areas (canopy cover >30 percent and >5 m height). See Harris et al. (2021) for further information on the forest definition used in the analysis.
• Emissions reflect stand-replacing disturbances as observed in Landsat satellite imagery and do not include emissions from unobserved forest degradation.
• Activity data used as the basis of the estimates contain temporal inconsistencies:
• Removals data contain temporal inconsistencies because tree cover gain represents a cumulative total from 2000-2020, rather than annual gains as estimated through 2023.
• Improvements in the detection of tree cover loss due to the incorporation of new satellite data and methodology changes between 2011 and 2015 may result in higher estimates of emissions in recent years compared to earlier years. Refer here for additional information.
• Large jumps in net flux along some boundary are due to the use of ecozone-specific removal factors. The changes in net flux occur at ecozone boundaries, where different removal factors are applied on each side.
• This dataset has been updated since its original publication. See Overview for more information.