EASC 2310 Lesson 35: The Carbon Cycle and Climate Change

Flashcards about the carbon cycle, its processes, and importance based on lecture notes.

What is the carbon cycle?

The process that moves carbon between plants, animals, microbes, minerals in the earth, and the atmosphere.

What is the easy definition of the carbon cycle?

Recycles carbon between different reservoirs, which helps regulate global temperatures and makes life possible; the key to balance is for sources and sinks to have the same amount of CO2.

What is the carbon cycle?

The process that moves carbon between plants, animals, microbes, minerals in the earth, and the atmosphere.

What is the easy definition of the carbon cycle?

Recycles carbon between different reservoirs, which helps regulate global temperatures and makes life possible; the key to balance is for sources and sinks to have the same amount of CO2.

What are the major reservoirs where carbon is stored on Earth?

The atmosphere, the oceans, living things (biosphere), and rocks and soils (lithosphere).

What is the carbon cycle?

Movement of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and lithosphere.

What is carbon dioxide (CO2)?

A clear gas composed of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms; it's stable, inert, and non-toxic; occurs naturally in small amounts in the atmosphere and is very important in the carbon cycle.

Where is methane naturally emitted from?

Wetlands, fossil fuels, and agriculture

Is the Earth's carbon cycle a closed system?

Earth doesn’t lose or receive carbon from space.

Where is most of Earth’s carbon stored?

Rocks and sediments.

Why is the carbon cycle important?

It plays a key role in regulating Earth’s climate and making the planet habitable.

What happens during the ocean-atmospheric exchange process?

Carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater and is released from seawater.

What happens during the photosynthesis process?

Plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into sugars.

What happens during the respiration process?

Living things release carbon dioxide when they breathe.

What happens during the decomposition process?

Decomposers digest dead animals and plants, releasing carbon back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

What happens during the combustion process?

Carbon dioxide is produced when something burns, transferring carbon from the biosphere into the atmosphere.

What happens during the chemical weathering process?

Atmospheric CO2 dissolves in rainwater and dissolves rocks.

What happens during the volcanism process?

Volcanoes release carbon dioxide from molten rocks into the atmosphere.

Which stores more carbon, the Ocean or the atmosphere?

The ocean.

What is one of the simplest interactions in the ocean carbon cycle?

Gas exchange at the ocean surface.

What is the thermocline?

A layer at roughly 3300 feet (1,000 meters) down, which separates the turbulent, well-mixed surface waters from the calmer waters in the deep sea

What happens to carbon dioxide during photosynthesis?

Plants use carbon dioxide to create sugars, locking it into plant biomass.

How does respiration affect carbon dioxide levels?

It returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by breaking down sugars.

How do wildfires affect the carbon cycle?

Transfers carbon dioxide from the biosphere into the atmosphere.

What are ground fires?

Glowing combustion where accumulations of peat, humus, tree roots burn slowly underground.

What happens during the combustion of fuels?

Carbon and hydrogen react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water.

What happens to a small proportion of this biological-cycle carbon?

A small proportion of the biological carbon cycle becomes buried in sedimentary rocks such as during the slow formation of coal, as tiny fragments and molecules in organic-rich shales/mudstones, and as the shells and other parts of marine organisms in limestones

Where is organic matter stored?

Organic matter (carbon) from land plants is stored in peat, coal, and permafrost.

What happens in the Chemical weathering of silicate minerals?

Silicate minerals converts atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to dissolved bicarbonate (HCO3 −), which is stored in the oceans.

What is stored in carbonate rocks?

Dissolved carbon is converted by marine organisms to aragonite or calcite (CaCO3), which is stored in carbonate rocks (limestones, dolostones).

What is stored in sediments?

Carbon compounds.

Where are carbon-bearing sediments transferred?

Carbon-bearing sediments are transferred to the mantle (via subduction).

What happens during Volcanic eruptions?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released back to the atmosphere.