News tagged with carbon cycle

Modeling microbes to manage carbon dioxide

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the past decade, microbiologists began realizing that communities of microbes process energy and materials, which affects their environments. To understand how microbial communities function ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

First plants caused ice ages: research

New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. Led by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, the study is published today (February 1, 2012) in Nature Geoscience.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (12) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands

Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Researchers meet to refine carbon budget for US East Coast

A group of 35 researchers from institutions all along the eastern seaboard gathered at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science last week to further integrate and refine field measurements and computer models ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 23, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Team finds natural reasons behind nitrogen-rich forests

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many tropical forests are extremely rich in nitrogen even when there are no farms or industries nearby, says Montana State University researcher Jack Brookshire.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Diverse ecosystems are crucial climate change buffer

Preserving diverse plant life will be crucial to buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in in the world's drylands, according to a new landmark study.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists tackle the carbon conundrum

U.S. scientists have developed a new, integrated, ten-year science plan to better understand the details of Earth's carbon cycle and people's role in it. Understanding the carbon cycle is central for mitigating climate change ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 16, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 26

Long-Term carbon storage in Ganges basin may portend global warming worsening

(PhysOrg.com) -- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have found that carbon is stored in the soils and sediments of the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin for a surprisingly long time, making it likely ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 09, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (6) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

How Arctic microbes respond to a warming world

From the North Pole to the Arctic Ocean, the frozen soils within this region keep an estimated 1,672 billion metric tons of carbon out of the Earth's atmosphere. This sequestered carbon is more than 250 times ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 06, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Researchers explore plankton's shifting role in deep sea carbon storage

The tiny phytoplankton Emiliania huxleyi, invisible to the naked eye, plays an outsized role in drawing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it deep in the seas. But this role may change as ocean water becomes warmer ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Bacterial communication could affect Earth's climate

(PhysOrg.com) -- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have discovered that bacterial communication could have a significant impact on the planet's climate.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Current view of soil-climate interaction too simplistic, warn scientists

(PhysOrg.com) -- Assumptions over the rate at which soil bacteria will break down carbon in the face of global warming must be re-addressed, according to some of the world’s leading experts.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 05, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Living in the galactic danger zone

We know for certain that life exists in the Milky Way galaxy: that life is us. Scientists are continually looking to understand more about how life on our planet came to be and the conditions that must be ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 23, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Diamonds show depth extent of Earth's carbon cycle

Scientists have speculated for some time that the Earth's carbon cycle extends deep into the planet's interior, but until now there has been no direct evidence. The mantle–Earth's thickest layer –is ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Sep 15, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Up from the depths: How bacteria capture carbon in the 'twilight zone'

Located between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean surface is a "twilight zone" where insufficient sunlight penetrates for microorganisms to perform photosynthesis. Details are now emerging about a microbial metabolic pathway ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Carbon cycle

The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.

The carbon cycle is usually thought of as four major reservoirs of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. These reservoirs are:

The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. The ocean contains the largest active pool of carbon near the surface of the Earth, but the deep ocean part of this pool does not rapidly exchange with the atmosphere.

The global carbon budget is the balance of the exchanges (incomes and losses) of carbon between the carbon reservoirs or between one specific loop (e.g., atmosphere ↔ biosphere) of the carbon cycle. An examination of the carbon budget of a pool or reservoir can provide information about whether the pool or reservoir is functioning as a source or sink for carbon dioxide.

For more information about Carbon cycle, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.