Carbon Cycle

Question 1

What is a carbon store?

Answer 1

Where the carbon is held

Question 2

What is a flux?

Answer 2

Flows of movement between stores, can operate on local and global scales

Question 3

Pentagrams / Gigatonnes

Answer 3

the units used to measure carbon, one petagram aka gigatonne, is equal to a million kg

Question 4

How is geological carbon formed?

Answer 4

where sedimentary rocks are created ie chalk and limestone

Question 5

What are the processes involved in the geological carbon cycle?

Answer 5

Weathering
Deposition
Transportation 
Sedimentation 
Metamorphosis

Question 6

What is biologically derived carbon and how does it form?

Answer 6

Carbon created from dead organisms such as coal and shale

Question 7

What are the four main fluxes?

Answer 7

Decomposition
Combustion
Photosynthesis
Respiration

Question 8

What is a carbon sink?

Answer 8

A carbon sink takes in and stores more carbon than it releases

Question 9

What is a carbon source?

Answer 9

A carbon source releases more carbon than it stores.

Question 10

Examples of sources?

Answer 10

Respiration 
Emissions from burning fossil fuels
Forest fires
Volcanic Eruptions 
Agriculture
Decomposition

Question 11

Examples of sinks?

Answer 11

Oceans
Plant
Soils
Photosynthesis
Atmosphere

Question 12

What is the positive feedback loop?

Answer 12

Wildfires —> less water due to less evaporation from less trees —-> less rainfall —-> less photosynthesis

Carbon emissions increase due to wildfires and lack of photosynthesis

Question 13

Example of negative feedback loop?

Answer 13

Eyjafallajokull eruption balanced out by the processes

Question 14

Where is carbon recycled?

Answer 14

At destructive plate margins when carbonate rocks are dragged onto the mantle creating an upper mantle carbon of between 50 and 250ppm

Question 15

What is the biological pump?

Answer 15

Phytoplankton photosynthesise and take in co2 from the surface waters. These phytoplankton are then taken in by zooplankton which are then eaten by larger organisms, carbon is passed along the chain. Can end up as fecal matter which falls to the sea floor and reaches the mesopelagic zone where sedimentary fuel deposits form.

Question 16

What is the carbonate pump?

Answer 16

Carbon cycling or carbonate ions into shells in the presence of certain plankton and molluscs. These shells then dissolve or reach the sea bed where they decompose and can form fossil fuel deposits in many years time.

Question 17

What is the physical pump?

Answer 17

Downwelling currents occur in areas where cold, denser water sinks. These downwelling currents bring dissolved CO2 down to the deep ocean. Once there, the CO2 moves into slow-moving deep ocean currents staying there for hundreds of years.
Eventually, these deep ocean currents return to the surface in a process called upwelling. Many upwelling currents occur along coastlines. When upwelling currents bring deep, cold ocean water to the surface, the water warms and some of the dissolved CO2 is released back to the atmosphere. Downwelling and upwelling currents are important components of the deep ocean conveyor belt and are important in physcially transporting carbon compounds to different parts of the oceans

Question 18

What is the terrestrial sequestration process?

Answer 18

The processed by which carbon is passed throughout the life of an organism

Question 19

Explain how carbon enters and exits the biosphere?

Answer 19

One way carbon enters the biosphere is through photosynthesis as plants use atmospheric CO2 to create energy. the plants released some of this through respiration causing the carbon to exit the biosphere and enter the atmosphere.Another way carbon can exit the biosphere is through animals. If an animal consumes a plant then the carbon that the animal absorbs will become part of the fat and protein as well as being respired back into the atmosphere.

Question 20

How much carbon do soils store?

Answer 20

20% to 30% of global carbon

Question 21

Factors effecting carbon storage in soils?

Answer 21

Type of soil
Climate
Management and use of soils