State of science in carbon budget assessments for temperate forests and grasslands

With the abundance of observations and advancement in modeling, temperate regions allow for a comprehensive comparison of the data-driven and process-based methods of carbon budget estimation. This chapter presents a review of the latest methodologies for carbon budget and component flux estimation, and the key components in the temperate carbon budget, such as forest regrowth, and summarizes uncertainties in the current carbon budget of temperate ecosystems that the research community needs to resolve. Lastly, we describe the key progress made in the carbon budget assessment in past decades, and how it should be further advanced to be useful for policy decision-making.