Global climate warming, which arises from increased greenhouse gases because of fossil fuel combustion and land use change, is one of the most profound anthropogenic disturbances to our planet, seriously impacting the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest carbon pool in terrestrial ecosystems, and its small changes will affect global carbon balance and climate changes. In the past 30 years, the mechanisms of increasing temperature on SOC decomposition have been studied in different forest ecosystems. In this study, we systematically analyzed the influence patterns and mechanisms of warming on SOC decomposition through 26 field warming experiments established in forest ecosystems worldwide. We found that warming generally promoted the decomposition of forest SOC and had a positive feedback effect on climate warming. However, due to the differences in warming types and durations, diversity of soil microbial community structure and function, the structure and composition of the SOC, plant-soil-microorganism interactions, and forest types, we still lack a comprehensive and mechanistic understanding of the extent and spatial-temporal pattern of forest SOC decomposition in response to climate warming. The relative contributions of these biological and abiotic factors are unclear. We developed a conceptual framework of SOC decomposition under the warming context and considered microbial community composition and function, SOC fractions, and plant-soil-microorganism interactions. To improve our understanding of the carbon-climate feedback of forest ecosystems under warming and provide the scientific basis for formulating forest ecosystem management practices and realizing "carbon neutrality", we further proposed future research directions on SOC decomposition. 1) Investigate the long-term effects of warming on the SOC decomposition in different forest ecosystems, mainly tropical and subtropical forest ecosystems, to identify the spatial-temporal dynamic characteristics of SOC decomposition; 2) probe into relationships between SOC decomposition and microbial functional community and their adaptation to long-term warming, to reveal the microbial mechanisms of SOC decomposition in response to warming; 3) form a unified method of SOC fraction to reveal the response characteristics and mechanisms of different soil carbon components to warming; 4) clarify the responses of plant-soil-microorganism interactions to the simulated warming and their regulations on SOC decomposition in forest ecosystems; 5) explore the interactions of warming and other global change factors (e.g., precipitation regime changes, land use changes, and atmospheric nitrogen deposition) on SOC decomposition to provide a theoretical basis for better assessment of forest soil carbon dynamics and maintenance of carbon sink function under future global changes.