Accounting for the vegetation signal is critical for comprehensive CO₂ budget assessment in China. We model and evaluate hourly vegetation carbon dioxide (CO₂) exchange (mass per unit area per unit time) in northern China from 2005 to 2009. The model is driven by satellite and meteorological data, is linked to ground-level ecosystem observations, and is applicable to other time periods. We find vegetation uptake of CO₂ in summer is comparable to emissions from fossil fuels in northern China.