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The increased frequency of climate extremes in recent years has profoundly affected terrestrial ecosystem functions and the welfare of human society. The carbon cycle is a key process of terrestrial ecosystem changes. Therefore, a better understanding and assessment of the impacts of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle could provide an important scientific basis to facilitate the mitigation and adaption of our society to climate change. In this paper, we systematically review the impacts of climate extremes (e.g. drought, extreme precipitation, extreme hot and extreme cold) on terrestrial ecosystems and their mechanisms. Existing studies have suggested that drought is one of the most important stressors on the terrestrial carbon sink, and that it can inhibit both ecosystem productivity and respiration. Because ecosystem productivity is usually more sensitive to drought than respiration, drought can significantly reduce the strength of terrestrial ecosystem carbon sinks and even turn them into carbon sources. Large inter-model variations have been found in the simulations of drought-induced changes in the carbon cycle, suggesting the existence of a large gap in current understanding of the mechanisms behind the responses of ecosystem carbon balance to drought, especially for tropical vegetation. The effects of extreme precipitation on the carbon cycle vary across different regions. In general, extreme precipitation enhances carbon accumulation in arid ecosystems, but restrains carbon sequestration in moist ecosystems. However, current knowledge on the indirect effects of extreme precipitation on the carbon cycle through regulating processes such as soil carbon lateral transportation and nutrient loss is still limited. This knowledge gap has caused large uncertainties in assessing the total carbon cycle impact of extreme precipitation. Extreme hot and extreme cold can affect the terrestrial carbon cycle through various ecosystem processes. Note that the severity of such climate extremes depends greatly on their timing, which needs to be investigated thoroughly in future studies. In light of current knowledge and gaps in the understanding of how extreme climates affect the terrestrial carbon cycle, we strongly recommend that future studies should place more attention on the long-term impacts and on the driving mechanisms at different time scales. Studies based on multi-source data, methods and across multiple spatial-temporal scales, are also necessary to better characterize the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate extremes.