3.21 Carbon and Water Cycles Flashcards
What is the whole carbon cycle powered by?
Photosynthesis
What do green plants use the carbon from carbon dioxide to make?
Carbohydrates, lipids and proteins.
What does eating do to the carbon cycle?
Eating passes the carbon compounds in plants along to animals in a food chain or web
What process do plants and animals do that releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere?
Respiration
What happens once plants and animals die in the carbon cycle?
They decompose and turn into useful products. When plants and animals decompose they’re broken down by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. These microorganisms are known as decomposers and they release enzymes, which catalyse the breakdown of dead materials into smaller molecules. Decomposers release carbon dioxide back into the air by respiration as they break down the material.
How is carbon dioxide released back into the air? (3)
- Both plant and animal respiration while organisms are alive releases carbon dioxide back into the air.
- When plants and animals decompose they’re broken down by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. These decomposers release carbon dioxide back into the air by respiration as they break down the material.
- Some useful plant and animal products, e.g. wood and fossil fuels, are burned (combustion). This also releases carbon dioxide.
What is the first point of the water cycle?
Energy from the Sun makes water evaporate from the land and sea, turning it into water vapour. Water also evaporates from plants (transpiration).
What happens after evaporation?
The warm water vapour is carried upwards (as warm air rises). When it gets higher up it cools and condenses to form clouds.
What happens after condensation?
Water falls from the clouds as precipitation (usually rain, but sometimes snow or hail) onto land.
What happens after precipitation? (2)
- Some of this water is absorbed by the soil and is taken up by plant roots. This provides plants with fresh water for things like photosynthesis. Some of the water taken up by plants becomes part of the plant’s tissues and’’ is passed along to animals in food chains.
- Water that doesn’t get absorbed by the soil will runoff into streams and rivers.
What happens after the water is passed along to animals in food chains?
Like plants, animals need water for the chemical reactions that happen in their bodies. Animals return water to the soil and atmosphere through excretion (processes that get rid of the waste products of chemical reactions, e.g. sweating, urinating, breathing out).
What happens after there is water runoff in the water cycle?
The water drains back into the sea, before it evaporates all over again.
What 5 stores is carbon split between?
- The atmosphere
- Plants, where its locked up in biological molecules
- In the soil, which contains lots of bacteria
- In fossil fuels, which are underground
- In animals, where its locked up in biological molecules
What happens to water during condensation?
Water vapour turns into liquid water
Which three processes in the carbon cycle releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?
- Decomposition
- Combustion
- Respiration