Carbon Cycle Flashcards
What is a carbon store?
Where the carbon is held
What is a flux?
Flows of movement between stores, can operate on local and global scales
Pentagrams / Gigatonnes
the units used to measure carbon, one petagram aka gigatonne, is equal to a million kg
How is geological carbon formed?
where sedimentary rocks are created ie chalk and limestone
What are the processes involved in the geological carbon cycle?
Weathering Deposition Transportation Sedimentation Metamorphosis
What is biologically derived carbon and how does it form?
Carbon created from dead organisms such as coal and shale
What are the four main fluxes?
Decomposition
Combustion
Photosynthesis
Respiration
What is a carbon sink?
A carbon sink takes in and stores more carbon than it releases
What is a carbon source?
A carbon source releases more carbon than it stores.
Examples of sources?
Respiration Emissions from burning fossil fuels Forest fires Volcanic Eruptions Agriculture Decomposition
Examples of sinks?
Oceans Plant Soils Photosynthesis Atmosphere
What is the positive feedback loop?
Wildfires —> less water due to less evaporation from less trees —-> less rainfall —-> less photosynthesis
Carbon emissions increase due to wildfires and lack of photosynthesis
Example of negative feedback loop?
Eyjafallajokull eruption balanced out by the processes
Where is carbon recycled?
At destructive plate margins when carbonate rocks are dragged onto the mantle creating an upper mantle carbon of between 50 and 250ppm
What is the biological pump?
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.
What is the carbonate pump?
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.
What is the physical pump?
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
What is the terrestrial sequestration process?
The processed by which carbon is passed throughout the life of an organism
Explain how carbon enters and exits the biosphere?
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.
How much carbon do soils store?
20% to 30% of global carbon
Factors effecting carbon storage in soils?
Type of soil
Climate
Management and use of soils
