The Carbon Cycle EQ1 Flashcards
What is energy security?
The uninterrupted availability of energy at an ideal price
What is primary energy?
Consumed in its raw form
E.g. fossil fuels, nuclear energy, renewables
What is secondary energy?
Manufactured sources of power
E.g. electricity, petrol, diesel
Why do countries have an energy mix?
-In case one runs out
-Different sources meet different demands
-Some energy sources are only available at certain times
What is the energy mix?
Shows the amount of each resource used in a country
What is the UK’s energy supply and consumption?
-Used coal heavily in the 1970s
-Starting using more oil after the 1970s
-North sea oil stocks are declining causing the UK to import more
-Committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2035
-Pledged to become net zero by 2050
-Increased reliance on imported energy affects energy security
-Privatisation of primary energy in the 1980s
What is Norway’s energy supply and consumption?
-Have over 600 hydroelectric power sites
-Rely heavily on renewable energy
-Hydroelectric power supplies 97.5% of the country’s energy
-Committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030
-Pledged to become net zero by 2050
What factors affect the per capita energy consumption?
-Cost
-Physical availability
-Technology
-Economic development/standard of living
-Climate
-Environmental policies
-Public perception
What are the implications of the climate warming by 2 degrees?
Climate:
-Antarctic shelves will melt
-South Africa, South Asia, Sahel will become drier and experience mire droughts
-Precipitation will increase in higher latitudes and decrease in lower latitudes
Ecosystems:
-Will affect biodiversity
-By 2080 shifting temperatures may reduce bird habitats in North America and affect 314 species
-Plants will change as they cannot move away
Hydrological Cycle:
-Small glaciers will disappear
-Permafrost areas will thaw
-Rivers will dry up where precipitation is reduced
How much has atmospheric circulation increased?
400ppm in 2017 to 241ppm in 2024
What are the causes and impacts of climate change?
Causes:
-Human activity
-Many warm years occurring
Impacts:
-Global temperatures were 1.4 degrees higher in 2023 to preindustrial revolution
-Methane and carbon dioxide levels were highest in 420,000 years
-Sea ice is shrinking
-By the end of the century, temperature rise is predicted 1.5 to 4 degrees
What is the importance of the carbon cycle?
-Plants require carbon dioxide to photosynthesise
-We rely on plants for our oxygen
-Phytoplankton require carbon dioxide for photosynthesis to form the base of the food chain
-Marine life use carbon for shell building
What is a producer?
Photosynthesise and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and release it back through respiration
What is a consumer?
Animals eat plants, plant becomes part of the animals fats so the carbon is inside the animals
What is a feeder?
Micro organisms and detritus feed on waste materials, becomes part of the micro organisms
Terrestrial sequestration facts:
-Tissues decay faster than more resistant structures
-Grassland, savannahs, tropical forests are the most productive biomes
-Trees are the largest stores
-Diurnally = during the day fluxes are positive from the atmosphere to the ecosystem, at night fluxes are negative from the ecosystem to the atmosphere
-Seasonally = in the northern hemisphere winter, atmospheric concentrations rise when plants are decaying and rise and drop when plants grow in the spring
What is sequestering?
Movement of carbon to carbon stores
-Lowers the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
-Mostly responsible by photosynthesis
What is the biological pump?
-Phytoplankton use sunlight to turn carbon into organic matter through photosynthesis
-Carbon is passed through the food chain to consumer fish which release carbon dioxide back into the water and atmosphere
-Phytoplankton sequester over 2 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually to the ocean
What is the carbonate pump?
-Relies on inorganic carbon sediments
-When dead organisms die and sink, shells dissolve before reaching the sea floor
-Carbon becomes part of the deep water currents
-Shells that don’t dissolve build up on the sea floor and form limestone
What is the physical pump?
-Based on the oceanic circulation of water (upwelling, downwelling, thermohaline current)
-Carbon dioxide mixes slowly in the ocean and fast in the atmosphere
-Polar oceans store more carbon dioxide than tropical oceans
-Carbon dioxide concentration is higher in the deep ocean that at the surface
-Warm tropical waters release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
-Cold oceans take in carbon dioxide
-2x more carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold, polar oceans that warm ones
What does thermohaline circulation mean?
-Thermo = temperature
-Haline = salt content
-Cold water sinks due to high density
-Warm water rises due to low density
-Salt content causes high density
What is the geological carbon cycle?
-A slow moving cycle moving carbon between land, oceans and the atmosphere
-Slow turnover rates of 100,000 years
-Large carbon stores in rocks and sediments
What is the biological/physical carbon cycle?
-A fast moving cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, ocean sediment, vegetation, soils and freshwater
-Involves large fluxes and fast turnovers
How is limestone formed?
-Shell building organisms and plankton must die
-They fall onto the ocean floor forming layers
-Layers become cemented together and become lithified
How is shale formed?
-Organic carbon from organisms is embedded in mud
-Heat and pressure compresses the mud over millions of years
-Forms sedimentary rocks
How are fossil fuels formed?
-Dead organisms sink to the bottom of the sea and rivers
-They become covered in silt and mud
-They then decay anaerobically over millions of years
-Deeper the deposit means more heat and pressure exerted on the deposits
What is volcanic out gassing?
Release of a gas that was either dissolved or stored due to changes in heat or pressure
What is a carbon sink?
A carbon reservoir that takes in and stores more carbon than it releases
What is carbon fixation?
The incorporation of carbon into organic compounds by living organisms e.g. by photosynthesis
What is a carbon pool?
A system that has the capacity to store or release carbon
What is the carbon cycle?
-Carbon is an element
-Carbon is found in organic and inorganic compounds
-The carbon cycle is the process of how carbon is stored and transferred
-The cycle is a closed system with inputs of energy but the amount of carbon in the system stays the same
How is carbon presented?
-Atmosphere = carbon dioxide, methane
-Hydrosphere = dissolved carbon dioxide
-Lithosphere = fossil fuels, limestone, calcium carbonates
-Biosphere = living and dead organisms
