The global land carbon sink showed a strong rebound in 2025, coinciding with a decline in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2. Land sinks absorbed 2.36 gigatonnes of carbon during the year, which was 0.71 gigatonnes higher than the average recorded between 2015 and 2022.
Growth in tropical forests drove this recovery after the global land sink was almost cancelled during 2023 and 2024 due to Amazon fires and El Niño. Philippe Ciais at the Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory in France stated, "In 2023 and 2024, because of El Niño and the Amazon fires, we had the almost cancellation of the global land sink."
Ciais noted that plants regained their carbon uptake capacity because the climate became more normal, particularly in Africa and the Amazon. Natural sinks across land and oceans removed more than 50 per cent of the CO2 produced by human activities.
Mike O'Sullivan at the University of Exeter in the UK described 2024 as an "extreme year" and observed that the land is showing short-term resilience. O'Sullivan explained, "There is a short-term shock, which is the El Niño, and it is recovering the year after."
The land sink currently measures 25 per cent smaller than it would have been if climate change and natural variability had not occurred. O'Sullivan cautioned, "What it doesn't mean is that the land is going to maintain long-term resilience to climate change."
A super El Niño is expected to potentially become the most intense in history later in 2026.
