May Term 2015

Nicktae Marroquin-Haslett
5-28-15

The Global Carbon Cycle

All living and some non-living things have carbon in them. Carbon has been called the building
block of life because every organism on earth needs carbon for its structure, energy or as is the case with
humans, both. It is an abundant element in our world and so it seems only right to know how it lives and
where it goes; in other words, it seems fit to know the carbon cycle.
The place where you always hear about carbon being is the atmosphere. In the atmosphere
carbon becomes oxidized when coming into contact with oxygen, meaning it forms Carbon Dioxide
(CO2, one carbon and two oxygen). CO2 in the atmosphere is an important element in keeping our
world warm. The CO2 traps heat waves, reflecting them back onto the earth when they try to escape. It
is because of this that our world isnt a frozen land and for that we should be grateful. However,
artificial increases of CO2 in the atmosphere from humans, has led to more heat waves than usual being
reflected back onto the earth, warming it significantly, an issue that will be addressed later in the paper.
Carbon moves around the earth in many different forms. It changes from a solid, to a liquid, to a gas,
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and back again, as it passes around through the earths oceans, the atmosphere (the gases that surround
the earth), and ecosystems. The carbon cycle is defined by the many carbon reservoirs (sinks) and the
ways in which the carbon element moves between these sinks. Sinks in the carbon cycle include the
atmosphere, oceans, vegetation, rocks and soil. The global carbon cycle is so large that it can be divided
into two cycles, the geological and the biological carbon cycle.
The geological carbon cycle is, as you can see in the picture below, mainly between the
atmosphere, the ocean and the sediment that rain brings into the ocean. The geological carbon cycle runs
on a time scale of millions of years, while the biological time scale runs from days to millions of years.
The biological carbon cycle is the cycle between plants, animals, and soil. The picture below is a muchsimplified version of the carbon cycle. The diagram shows the biological carbon cycle, between the
atmosphere and the vegetation, the geological carbon cycle between the atmosphere and the ocean and
the carbon source of humans burning fossil fuels, and releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

The geological carbon cycle is very slow moving and like any cycle there is no actual beginning or end,
but a logical starting point is the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water reach to each other in the
atmosphere, creating carbonic acid, which is slightly acidic water. This water is rained onto the earths
surface and interacts with it, slowly dissolving the minerals into their basic elements. These elements are
then carried away in sediment by surface water into the ocean where they end up at the bottom and turn
into minerals like calcite (CaC03); then through being buried and having continuous pressure on them
from the water, this calcite sediment turns into limestone (with carbon trapped inside). The cycle
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continues with the sea floor spreading and pushing itself under continental plates. The carbon trapped in
the sea floor sediment is being continually pushed deeper into the earths mantle until the sea floor heats
up and melts, setting the carbon free to find its way back to the surface where it is released into the
atmosphere as CO2 again. Carbon returning to the atmosphere from the mantle can happen in many
ways. It can shoot out violently through volcanic eruptions, when large amounts of molten mantle are
pushed onto the surface. Carbon can also return to the atmosphere more gradually, through vents, and
CO2-rich hot springs.
The biological carbon cycle is bi-polar, in that it can be a fast moving or slow moving cycle, depending
on the circumstances. Biology plays an important role in the movement of carbon between land, ocean,
and atmosphere. Plants move carbon by the process of photosynthesis and respiration and animals move
carbon by respiration. During photosynthesis a plant takes CO2 from the atmosphere and energy from
the sunlight to create sugars (carbohydrates) and they use these sugars to grow. CO2 is transformed into
carbon compounds (chemical substances that contain carbon) that make up the body of the plant. In this
way, the plant stores carbon in its body while breathing out a small amount of carbon (less than it took
in) and oxygen. Animals then come along and eat these plants with stored carbon inside them.
Respiration releases the energy contained in sugars for use in the metabolism and changes the
carbohydrates back into CO2, which is then released back into the atmosphere through respiration. The
CO2 released by animals is then available again in the atmosphere for plants to use for photosynthesis.
Plants that do not get eaten by animals eventually decompose after the plant dies and the decomposers
(such as fungi) are able to break down the organic material into the chemical compounds inside the
body, releasing carbon dioxide as well as methane sometimes. CO2 is released when there is oxygen
present. If there is no oxygen present then methane is created (CH4). Methane is a less abutment gas
than carbon but it is more potent a green house gas, estimated to be 100 times more toxic than CO2. If
the plant does not decompose, it lays under ground for millions of years and with the pressure of the
crust on it, it will turn into a fossil fuel. This is how oil fields are formed, out of many plants that did not

decompose millions of years ago. If the plants turn into oil, or coal, or natural gas, the carbon is usually
released when we humans burn them for fuel.
Phytoplankton is still part of the biological carbon cycle. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants,
but they use carbon to make shells of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The shells settle to the bottom of the
ocean when the phytoplankton die and are buried over time. The shells become compressed over time
and turn into to one of two things. In the right circumstances the phytoplankton are compressed into
limestone. Under other geological conditions the phytoplankton form deposits of fuels, such as coal and
oil that contain carbon, at the bottom of the ocean.
While there has been a natural carbon cycle since this planet was born, recent humans activity
has thrown this cycle out of balance. Starting most likely at the start of the industrial revolution, humans
have burned a lot of long-term sinks of carbon that the planet made over billion of years ago, adding a
lot more carbon into the daily cycle of carbon in the atmosphere. The image that follows has numbers
attached to the arrows that show the flow of carbon in an average year in gigatons. A gigaton is
1,000,000,000 tons. The purple arrows on this picture show the fluxes (flow) between reservoirs per
year. If more carbon enters a pool (reservoir) than leaves it then that is considered a net carbon sink, or
just sink. If more carbon leaves a pool than enters it then that is considered a net carbon source, or just
source.

As illustrated in the previous image, humans emit roughly 5.5 gigatons of carbon into the
atmosphere a year, and this picture is a couple of years old so the current amount is higher still. Lack of
any historical perspective on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere in the past would be the only
reason to deny that humans have risen the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere far more than would
have accord naturally. However, as it is, there is a historical perspective, and it can be surmise from it
that the amount of carbon in the air these days is more than there has been in the last 420,000 years.
Charles Keeling is responsible for making the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2
concentrations. His data is now widely known as the Keeling Curve as it shows the amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere curving upwards dramatically in the last fifty years. It is because if his data that the true
effects of humans carbon emissions on the earth can be proven. The global temperature of the earth has
risen a 0.6 degree C just in the past century, and scientists are saying that if we continue on this path, the
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global temperature will rise at least 1.4 degrees in the next century, maybe even up to 5.8 degrees more.
The reason this is a critical factor is because when the temperature rises, the water rises too. This is
because the rise in temperature melts the glaciers, which hold a lot of water. The sea level might rise a
0.88 of a meter, almost a full meter, which is significant if the entire body of oceans and seas on earth
rises that much. That will mean more frequent and severe flooding in coastal cities and cities by rivers.
This is already being seen in Oklahoma and Texas, where they have had record floods. Parts of the
United States and the rest of the world would simply be covered in water. For example, the land around
Lake Superior, will rise almost a full meter, taking away a lot of shoreline.

Since measurements of atmospheric CO2 started, which was in the nineteenth century, the concentration
of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen 20%, due to human activities. Burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural
gas) and clearing forests for agriculture and cattle grazing, mainly in the Amazon, have led to a carbon
increase that can seriously damage the earth, and the species on it. The carbon cycle that this paper has
been about has historically gathered and stored carbon out of the atmosphere with surprising efficiency;
however, this cycle has now been severely interrupted by humans, because we are a new source of CO2
that did not exist before. We cant expect the natural carbon cycle to take care of the imbalance of
carbon we have created. As a society we must accept the challenge of figuring out a permanent solution
to our carbon emissions.

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