Carbon Cycle

This article is modified from an essay on the Internet.

The series of chemical, physical, geological, and biological changes by which carbon moves through the Earth's air, land, water, and living organisms is called the carbon cycle. Carbon makes up no more than 0.27% of the mass of all elements in the universe and only 0.0018% by weight of the elements in the Earth's crust. Carbon occurs in many different chemical combinations, including calcium carbonate (CaCO 3), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and a huge diversity of organic compounds. In contrast to carbon's relative scarcity in the environment, it makes up 19.4% by weight of the human body. Along with hydrogen, carbon is the only element to appear in every organic molecule in every living organism on Earth. The most abundant mineral forms of carbon in the rocks and soil of the Earth's crust are limestone (CaCO3) and dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2]. These mostly occur in sedimentary rocks, which were formed in ancient marine environments through biological influences that resulted in the precipitation of limestone and dolomite from ions of calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), and bicarbonate (HCO3-) dissolved in water. The amount of carbon stored in sedimentary rocks has not yet been accurately estimated, but is thought to be much larger than that occurring in any other compartment of the carbon cycle. Carbon also occurs in spaces within sedimentary crustal rocks in the form of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are extremely important, but non-renewable, natural resources used as sources of energy and for the manufacturing of plastics and other materials. Wherever mining and drilling technology can access fossil fuel deposits, these deposits are being rapidly used up. Fossil fuels are derived from the partially decomposed biomass of ancient plants and other organisms, which became buried deep beneath marine sediment and were transformed very slowly (under intense pressure and heat in the absence of oxygen) into their present forms. In the atmosphere, carbon exists almost entirely as gaseous carbon dioxide (CO2). Its global concentration is about 360 parts per million (ppm), or 0.036% by volume.

This makes carbon dioxide the fourth most abundant gas in the atmosphere after nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Some carbon is also released as methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) to the atmosphere by natural and human mechanisms. Carbon monoxide reacts readily with oxygen in the atmosphere, however, converting it to carbon dioxide. Carbon returns to the hydrosphere when carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans, as well as in lakes and other bodies of water. The solubility of carbon dioxide in water is not especially high, 88 milliliters of gas in 100 milliliters of water. Still, the Earth's oceans are so vast that they store approximately 36,000 billion tons of carbon. About 93 billion tons of carbon flow from the atmosphere into the hydrosphere each year. Carbon moves out of the oceans in two ways. Some escapes as carbon dioxide from water solutions and returns to the atmosphere. That amount is estimated to be very nearly equal (90 billion tons) to the amount entering the oceans each year. A smaller quantity of carbon dioxide (about 40 billion tons) is incorporated into aquatic plants. On land, green plants remove carbon dioxide from the air through the process of photosynthesis--a complex series of chemical reactions in which carbon dioxide is eventually converted to starch, cellulose, and other carbohydrates. Green plants fix about 100 billion tons of carbon each year, and a total of 560 billion tons of the element is thought to be stored in land plants alone. The carbon in green plants is eventually converted into a large variety of organic (carbon-containing) compounds. When animals eat green plants, they use the carbohydrates and other organic compounds as raw materials for the manufacture of thousands of new organic substances. The total collection of complex organic compounds stored in all kinds of living organisms represents the reservoir of carbon in the Earth's biosphere. The cycling of carbon through the biosphere involves three major kinds of organisms. Producers are organisms with the ability to manufacture organic compounds from inorganic materials. Green plants are the primary example of producers. Consumers are organisms that obtain their carbon from producers. All animals are consumers. Finally, decomposers are organisms that feed on the remains of dead plants and

animals. They convert carbon compounds in these organisms to carbon dioxide and other products. The carbon dioxide is then returned to the atmosphere to continue its path through the carbon cycle. Land plants return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere during the process of respiration. In addition, animals that eat green plants exhale carbon dioxide, contributing to the 50 billion tons of carbon released to the atmosphere by all forms of living organisms each year. Respiration and decomposition both represent, in the most general sense, a reverse of the process of photosynthesis. Complex organic compounds are oxidized with the release of carbon dioxide and water--the raw materials from which they were originally produced. At some point, land and aquatic plants and animals die and decompose. When they do so, some carbon (about 50 billion tons) returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The rest remains buried in the Earth (up to 1,500 billion tons) or on the ocean bottoms (about 3,000 billion tons). Several hundred million years ago, conditions of burial were such that organisms decayed to form products consisting almost entirely of carbon and hydrocarbons. Those materials exist today as pockets of fossil fuels. Estimates of the carbon stored in fossil fuels range from 5,000 to 10,000 billion tons. The processes that make up the carbon cycle have been occurring for millions of years, and for most of this time, the systems involved have been in equilibrium. The total amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere from all sources has been approximately equal to the total amount dissolved in the oceans and removed by photosynthesis. However, a hundred years ago changes in human society began to unbalance the carbon cycle. The Industrial Revolution initiated an era in which the burning of fossil fuels became widespread. In a short period of time, large amounts of carbon previously stored in the Earth as coal, oil, and natural gas were burned, releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Between 1850 and 1998, measured concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased from about 280 ppm to about 360 ppm, an increase of 29%. Scientists estimate that fossil fuel combustion now releases about five billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. In an equilibrium situation, that

additional five billion tons would be absorbed by the oceans or used by green plants in photosynthesis. Yet this appears not to be happening. Measurements indicate that about 60% of the carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuel combustion remains in the atmosphere. The problem is compounded by deforestation. As large tracts of forest are cut down and burned, carbon dioxide from forest fires is added to that from other sources, and the loss of trees decreases the worldwide rate of photosynthesis. Overall, it appears that these two factors have resulted in an additional one to two billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere each year. No one can be certain about the environmental effects of this disruption of equilibria in the carbon cycle. Some scientists believe that the additional carbon dioxide will augment the Earth's natural greenhouse effect, resulting in long-term global warming and climate change. Others argue that we still do not know enough about the way oceans, clouds, and other factors affect climate to allow such predictions.