Index to this page

The Carbon Cycle

The concentration of carbon in living matter (18%) is almost 100 times greater than its concentration in the earth (0.19%). So living things extract carbon from their nonliving environment. For life to continue, this carbon must be recycled. That is our topic.


Carbon exists in the nonliving environment as: Carbon enters the biotic world through the action of autotrophs: Carbon returns to the atmosphere and water by

The uptake and return of CO2 are not in balance.

The carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is gradually and steadily increasing. The graph shows the CO2 concentration at the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii from 1958 through 1999. The values are in parts per million (ppm). The seasonal fluctuation is caused by the increased uptake of CO2 by plants in the summer. (In May 2021, its concentration reached a record-breaking 419 ppm.)

The increase in CO2 probably began with the start of the industrial revolution. Samples of air trapped over the centuries in the glacial ice of Greenland show no change in CO2 content until 300 years ago.

Since measurements of atmospheric CO2 began late in the nineteenth century, its concentration has risen over 20%. This increase is surely "anthropogenic"; that is, caused by human activities:

Where is the missing carbon?

Curiously, the increase in atmospheric CO2 is only about one-half of what would have been expected from the amount of fossil fuel consumption and forest burning.

Where has the rest gone?

Research has shown that increased CO2 levels lead to increased net production by photoautotrophs. There is evidence that at least some of the missing CO2 has been incorporated by

The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming

Despite these "sinks" for our greatly-increased CO2 production, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 continues to rise? Should we be worried?

Carbon dioxide is transparent to light but rather opaque to heat rays. Therefore, CO2 in the atmosphere retards the radiation of heat from the earth back into space — the "greenhouse effect".

Has the increase in carbon dioxide led to global warming?

Some evidence:

Will continued increase in carbon dioxide lead to more global warming and, if so, how much?

At this point, the answer depends on what assumptions you plug into your computer models. But as the different models have been improved, they seem to be converging on a consensus: a doubling of the CO2 concentration (expected by the end of this century) will cause the earth to warm somewhere in the range of 1.1–6.4°C.

Other Greenhouse Gases

Although their levels in the atmosphere are much lower than that of CO2, are also potent greenhouse gases.

Methane

Although methane ("marsh gas") is released by natural processes (e.g. from decay occurring in swamps), human activities now account for some 60% of the total.

So burning of the tropical rain forest adds to the atmospheric methane budget in two ways:

The methane concentration in Arctic air is presently some 1.9 parts per million, the highest level seen such measurements began. Although this concentration is far less than that of CO2, methane is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas.

The marked warming of the earth that occurred at the end of the Paleocene epoch is thought to have been caused by the release of large amounts of methane from the sea floor.

Welcome&Next Search

10 September 2021