Section Name

Round and Round

A Guide to the Carbon Cycle
Carbon continuously cycles through living creatures, the atmosphere, the oceans, and Earth itself in one of natures more amazing balancing acts. The main building block of life, carbon is fixed into terrestrial and marine other organisms tissue through photosynthesis. Animals eat other organisms and burn carbohydrates for energy, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) through respiration and through decay after death. For much longer than humans have walked the earth, carbon generation has roughly equaled carbon consumption. But humankind has tipped the scales, adding CO2 to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuelsthe products of eons of accumulated plant matter transformed into coal and oil by geologic processes.
Illustration: C. Bickel/Science; graphics and layout: N. Kevitiyagala/Science

DENNIS NORMILE

Into the Deep

Cool oceanic waters absorb CO2, and cold currents at high latitudes carry dissolved carbon to the deep ocean; upwelling in the tropics brings much of it back up, and warm waters pass it back into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, tiny oceanic plants called phytoplankton absorb CO2 through photosynthesis, forming the first link in the marine food chain. Sinking fecal matter and decaying organisms take small amounts of carbon to the sea floor. This all results in a small net uptake of carbon by burial in ocean sediments.

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Dark Mysteries
Humans are now pumping more than 7 gigatons* of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, but scientists figure only about 50% remains there. Where does the rest of it go? Possibilities include greater-than-expected uptake by northern forests, the oceans, and desert soils. Solving the mystery is more difficult because of uncertainties about how much carbon is going where. Estimates of the amount of carbon emitted by clearing forests could be off by as much as 100%, according to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, though other flux estimates are believed to be closer to the mark.

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Flux of Carbon (gigatons/year)

Releases

Accumulations
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Emissions from fossil fuel Net release from land-use change Unidentified sink Atmospheric accumulation Oceanic uptake 1865 1880 1895 1910 1925 1940 1955 1970 1985 2000

*All units are metric. (Source: Woods Hole Research Center)

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25 20 15 RCO2 10 5 0 -600

Yapp (6) Mora (6, 7) Cerling (6) Sinha (8) Andrews (8) Ghosh (8)

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Ins and Outs

Carbon sinks: Vegetation net production: 57 gigatons/year Ocean absorption: 92.2 gigatons/year Land sinks: 2.3 gigatons/year Carbon sources: Vegetation respiration: 55.5 gigatons/year Ocean outgassing: 90.5 gigatons/year Fossil fuel and cement emissions: 6.4 gigatons/year Changes in land use: 1.2 gigatons/year
(Source: The First State of the Carbon Cycle Report, U.S. Climate Change Science Program)

Time (millions of years)

Ups and Downs

The amount of carbon in the atmosphere has varied widely over geologic time owing to the effects of ice ages, volcanism, asteroid impacts, and the spread and retreat of vegetation. About 500 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 density may have been 20 times as high as it is today. Atmospheric CO2 for most of the past 10,000 years hovered around 280 parts per million, but increasing use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has pushed it to its current level of about 385 ppm.
(Source: University of California, San Diego)

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