Name:

Earth 2: Activity 7
10/24/2023
The Global Carbon Cycle

1. a) (3 points) Use the following diagram of fluxes and reservoirs to fill in the
missing fluxes. All of the reservoirs are in steady state. The size of the atmospheric
CO2 reservoir is 760 Gton of C.

b) (3 points) Find the residence times of the ocean, marine sediments, and
sedimentary rocks reservoirs.
Name:

2. Use your answers to 1b to answer the following questions. Remember that the
residence time of carbon in a reservoir impacts how quickly it can contribute CO 2
concentrations to the atmosphere which determine climate. If you were examining
a record of past climate change, you would expect that changes happening over
different timescales would be related to faster or slower residence times of different
carbon reservoirs connected to that atmosphere.
a)
[2 points] You see a change in atmospheric CO2, and therefore climate, happening
over a timespan of about 500 years. Which reservoir is most likely responsible for
this climate swing? Explain your reasoning.

b)
[2 points] You also see a change in atmospheric CO2 happening over a much
longer timescale of about 100 million years. Which reservoir is most likely
responsible for this climate swing? Explain your reasoning.