A warming climate is altering land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon, with a potential for increased vegetation productivity as well as the mobilization of permafrost soil carbon stores. Here we investigate land–atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) dynamics through analysis of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and its component fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) and soil carbon residence time, simulated by a set of land surface models (LSMs) over a region spanning the drainage basin of northern Eurasia. The retrospective simulations were conducted over the 1960–2009 record and at 0.5° resolution, which is a scale common among many global carbon and climate model simulations. Model performance benchmarks were drawn from comparisons against both observed CO 2 fluxes derived from site-based eddy covariance measurements as well as regional-scale GPP estimates based on satellite remote sensing data. The site-based comparisons show the timing of peak GPP to be well simulated. Modest overestimates in model GPP and ER are also found, which are relatively higher for two boreal forest validation sites than the two tundra sites. Across the suite of model simulations, NEP increases by as little as 0.01 to as much as 0.79 g C m −2 yr −2 , equivalent to 3 to 340% of the respective model means, over the analysis period. For the multimodel average the increase is 135% of the mean from the first to last ten years of record (1960–1969 vs 2000–2009), with a weakening CO 2 sink over the latter decades. Vegetation net primary productivity increased by 8 to 30% from the first to last ten years, contributing to soil carbon storage gains, while model mean residence time for soil organic carbon decreased by 10% (−5 to −16%). This suggests that inputs to the soil carbon pool exceeded losses, resulting in a net gain amid a decrease in residence time. Our analysis points to improvements in model elements controlling vegetation productivity and soil respiration as being needed for reducing uncertainty in land–atmosphere CO 2 exchange. These advances require collection of new field data on vegetation and soil dynamics, the development of benchmarking datasets from measurements and remote sensing observations, and investments in future model development and intercomparison studies. Resulting improvements in parameterizations and processes driving productivity and soil respiration rates will increase confidence in model estimates of net CO 2 exchange, component carbon fluxes, and underlying drivers of change across the northern high latitudes.