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Feedbacks between land carbon pools and climate provide one of the largest sources of uncertainty in our predictions of global climate^,. Estimates of the sensitivity of the terrestrial carbon budget to climate anomalies in the tropics and the identification of the mechanisms responsible for feedback effects remain uncertain^,. The Amazon basin stores a vast amount of carbon, and has experienced increasingly higher temperatures and more frequent floods and droughts over the past two decades. Here we report seasonal and annual carbon balances across the Amazon basin, based on carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide measurements for the anomalously dry and wet years 2010 and 2011, respectively. We find that the Amazon basin lost 0.48 ± 0.18 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C yr⁻¹) during the dry year but was carbon neutral (0.06 ± 0.1 Pg C yr⁻¹) during the wet year. Taking into account carbon …