Global: Importance of global biomass carbon maps

Maps of vegetation biomass carbon density are important for quantifying terrestrial carbon sinks as well as potential emissions to the atmosphere from land-use change. Worldwide, living vegetation stores an enormous 500 billion tones of carbon, more than 60 times annual anthropogenic carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The tropics and sub-tropics combined store 430 billion tones of carbon, while boreal and temperate ecoregions store 34 billion tones and 33 billion tones, respectively.