Carbon Cycle

• Photosynthesis: Land and ocean, uses CO2 to create sugars for producers

• Respiration: Land and ocean, sugars are converted back to CO2

• Burial/sedimentation: Land and ocean, carbon is buried

• Extraction: Human extraction of fossil fuels and subsequent combustion, releasing back into the cycle

• Exchange: CO2 dissolves into the ocean and is lifted into the atmosphere at an equal rate

• Combustion: Converts fossil fuels and plant material into CO2

• In this cycle, carbon moves through reservoirs of the atmosphere and ocean, through organisms, and then back again.

• Photosynthesizers capture the carbon and use it to make sugars and sustenance (these are called producers, or autotrophs.)

• The cycle continues in organisms as producers are eaten and eventually exits as respiration or decomposition.

• In aquatic environments, carbon is in shelled creatures that can become buried, depositing carbon into the ground.

• Carbon is slowly converted into huge reservoirs of oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.

• They can stay like this for millions of years.

• Humans burn this for energy and release it back into the atmosphere.

• Without humans, the carbon cycle is steady, but we have tipped the scale.