What was done
The authors analyzed trends in forest biomass in all 28 ecoregions covering the Russian territory, based on data collected from 1953 to 2002 within 3196 sample plots comprised of about 50,000 entries, which database, in their words, "contains all available archived and published data."

What was learned
Over the period 1961-1998, Lapenis et al. found that "aboveground wood, roots, and green parts increased by 4%, 21%, and 33%, respectively," such that "the total carbon density of the living biomass stock of the Russian forests increased by ~9% from 4.08 to 4.44 kg C m^-2." In addition, they report there was an "increase in the area of the Russian forests (from 695.5 x 10¹⁰ m² in 1961 to 774.2 x 10¹⁰ m² in 1998)," which equates to ~11%.

What it means
Where trees are not cut down but are allowed to grow, and where new trees are either planted or allowed to naturally regenerate, the greening of planet earth continues, in spite of all the doom-and-gloom prognostications of the planet's radical environmentalists. The team of US, Austrian and Russian scientists also reports that "within the range of 50-65° of latitude (the range of 90% of Russian and Scandinavian forests), the relationship between biomass density and the area-averaged NDVI is very close to a linear function, with a slope of ~1," citing the work of Myneni et al. (2001). Therefore, as they continue, "changes in the carbon density of live biomass in Russian forests occur at about the same rate as the increase in the satellite-based estimate in the seasonally accumulated NDVI," which observation strengthens the findings of all other satellite-based NDVI studies, reviews of many of which can be easily accessed by inputting the words "satellite NDVI" into our search engine] .

References
Myneni, R.B., Dong, J., Tucker, C.J., Kaufmann, R.K., Kauppi, P.E., Liski, J., Zhou, L., Alexeyev, V. and Hughes, M.K. 2001. A large carbon sink in the woody biomass of Northern forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA: 98: 14,784-14,789.