The Carbon Cycle

The Carbon Cycle Step 1

Carbon enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide from respiration (breathing) and combustion (burning).
The Carbon Cycle Step 2
Carbon dioxide is absorbed by producers (life forms that make their own food e.g. plants) to make carbohydrates in photosynthesis . These producers then put off
oxygen.
The Carbon Cycle Step 3
Animals feed on the plants. Thus passing the carbon compounds along the food chain. Most of the carbon these animals consume however is exhaled as carbon
dioxide. This is through the process of respiration. The animals and plants then eventually die.
The Carbon Cycle Step 4
The dead organisms (dead animals and plants) are eaten by decomposers in the ground. The carbon that was in their bodies is then returned to the atmosphere as
carbon dioxide. In some circumstances the process of decomposition is prevented. The decomposed plants and animals may then be available as fossil fuel in the
future for combustion.

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

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

The reservoirs are the atmosphere, the terrestrial biosphere (which usually includes freshwater systems and non-living organic material, such as soil carbon), the
oceans (which includes dissolved inorganic carbon and living and non-living marine biota), and the sediments (which includes fossil fuels).

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.

Carbon is everywhere, and the planets dynamic natural forces are continuously moving it from place to place. There are four major reservoirs, or stocks, of carbon
on Earth: 1) in rocks (this includes fossil fuels), 2) dissolved in ocean water, 3) as plants, sticks, animals, and soil (which can be lumped together and called the land
biosphere), and 4) as a climate-warming gas in the atmosphere. (Check out the diagram below. Everyone loves dioramas, so it will henceforth be referred to as a
diorama. You can do your best to envision it in 3D.)
In the carbon cycle diorama, the size of each reservoir is expressed in GtC, and the transfer of carbon between reservoirs are written as GtC/yr. GtC stands for
Gigatons of Carbon, which is the same as one billion tons of carbon.

One GtC/yr means one billion metric tons of carbon moved between reservoirs in one year.
You can think of the carbon in each reservoir as a tiny building block carbon is, after all, an atom. Under foot, carbon is a building block that helps create the
structure of rocks and minerals. All around us, organic carbon forms the building blocks of life. In oceans and rivers, carbon is a building block of various molecules
that exist together with H2O in all but the purest water. In the atmosphere, carbon is the central building block of several greenhouse gases, including carbon
dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).
CARBON RESERVOIR I: ROCKS
The biggest carbon reservoir on earth is in rocks, weighing in at some 66 billion metric tons of carbon. In very rare instances (as in roughly .004%), carbon in rock is
in the form of coal, oil or natural gas. Most of the time it occurs as a chemical component of plain old granite, sandstone or limestone.

Carbon can leave rocks and enter the atmosphere. And, it can leave the atmosphere and go back into rocks.
Heres how the first part works: rock-bound carbon enters the atmosphere via volcanoes, as shown by the yellow arrow in the diorama. (Apologies for not having
drawn in a volcano; every good diorama should have one.)

For the second part: as wind and rain break down rocks over eons, CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere and put back into rock form as sediment (brown arrow).
The amount of carbon that enters and exits the atmosphere from volcanoes and into sediment each year is tiny compared to the amount that we emit by fossil fuel
burning. Tiny, as in volcanoes typically emit less than 1/100th the amount of CO2 that humans emit every year.
For the record, human fossil fuel emissions may have hit 9.7 billion metric tons of carbon in 2012 (emissions are still being tallied).
When fossil fuels are burned, the CO2 released enters far less stable reservoirs: first the atmosphere, and from there the trees and plants around us, and the
ocean. Lets look at how those reservoirs function, and what happens when they cant handle any more carbon.
CARBON RESERVOIR II: THE SEA
The next-biggest reservoir for carbon on Earth is the ocean. Scientists tend to split the ocean into two pools, like a two-layer cake. The top layer goes from the
surface to 100 meters down. Wind sloshes the water around, allowing CO2 gas to exchange with the atmosphere.
The bottom layer or deep ocean is bigger and less exposed to the atmosphere, and is therefore a good long-term storage place for large quantities of carbon.

Carbon moves between the ocean and atmosphere by diffusion. When the level of CO 2 in the atmosphere increases, some of it dissolves into ocean water.
Now, back to our diorama. Notice that the value of the white into-the-ocean arrow is slightly bigger than that of the blue out-of-the-ocean arrow. This
indicates that the ocean is sucking up excess carbon from the atmosphere.

It is fabulously useful that the ocean absorbs some of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Due to this imbalance, the oceans have been offering us a major (25%)
global warming discount every year. In other words, 25% of fossil fuel carbon we emit gets drawn into the ocean for good. If the ocean werent such a sink for CO2,
more would remain in the atmosphere, and more global warming would be happening.
There is a very bad downside to this discount, however. When ocean water absorbs carbon, it becomes more acidic. Hence the current degradation of the worlds
coral reefs.

Furthermore, this discount wont last for too much longer. The oceans chemistry will soon hit a threshold where it will stop absorbing CO2. When that day comes,
well have to reckon with much more global warming impact from each coal reserve and tank of gas that we burn.
CARBON RESERVOIRS III & IV: THE ATMOSPHERE & LAND PLANTS
The final reservoirs for carbon are the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere. As you can see in the diorama, they hold roughly equal amounts of carbon a
quantity close to that of the surface ocean.

Plants draw CO2 out of the atmosphere during photosynthesis. CO2 is plant food. During the night, some of that CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. When plants
die and decompose, all of the rest of that CO2 is either returned to the atmosphere or turns to organic matter in soil.
Before the industrial revolution, the atmosphere contained roughly 600 GtC. As of March 2013, that number had risen to 843 GtC: a 40% increase. If the worlds
oceans and plants hadnt been sucking excess CO2 out of the atmosphere all these years, the increased burden of CO2 in the atmosphere could be something closer
to 60 or 70%.
Youre rereading that sentence, arent you? Yes, thats right. Its not just the oceans; land plants are also sucking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than they are
emitting back to the atmosphere. In fact, plants and the sea combined provide a 50% discount on emissions as in, if these natural systems werent absorbing CO 2,
global warming would be twice as bad. This is an unbelievable stroke of good fortune for humans today.
The plant half of the discount is occurring because plants like a little bit of extra CO2 in the air they use CO2 like we use food.
Sadly, though, we are close to reaching a level of atmospheric CO2 where plants will stop absorbing excess carbon from the atmosphere. Like a kid in a candy store,
even plants hit the wall at some point and can eat no more.
As you can see, once carbon is unlocked from long-term storage as fossil fuels, that carbon goes into the atmosphere, land plants, and the surface ocean. One small
forest fire, and all of the carbon stored in land plants returns to the atmosphere again to increase global warming. One Gigaton too many into the oceans and their
waters will stop absorbing CO2.
The carbon cycle represents a vast and delicate balance. It seems clear that the safest option is for fossil fuels to stay deep underground where nature stored them
millions of years ago.

Processes in the nitrogen cycle

Five main processes cycle nitrogen through the biosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere: nitrogen fixation, nitrogen uptake through organismal growth,
nitrogen mineralization through decay, nitrification, and denitrification. Microorganisms, particularly bacteria, play major roles in all of the principal nitrogen
transformations. Because these processes are microbially mediated, or controlled by microorganisms, these nitrogen transformations tend to occur faster than
geological processes like plate motion, a very slow, purely physical process that is a part of the carbon cycle. Instead, rates are affected by environmental factors
that influence microbial activity, such as temperature, moisture, and resource availability.
Nitrogen fixation

Nitrogen fixation is the process wherein N2 is converted to ammonium, or NH4+. This is the only way that organisms can attain nitrogen directly from

the atmosphere; the few that can do this are called nitrogen-fixing organisms. Certain bacteria, including those among the genus Rhizobium, are able to fix

nitrogen (or convert it to ammonium) through metabolic processes, analogous to the way mammals convert oxygen to CO2 when they breathe. Nitrogen-fixing

bacteria often form symbiotic relationships with host plants. This symbiosis is well-known to occur in the legume family of plants (e.g., beans, peas, and clover). In

this relationship, nitrogen-fixing bacteria inhabit legume root nodules (Figure 2) and receive carbohydrates and a favorable environment from their host plant in

exchange for some of the nitrogen they fix. There are also nitrogen-fixing bacteria that exist without plant hosts, known as free-living nitrogen fixers.

In aquatic environments, blue-green algae (really a bacteria called cyanobacteria) are an important free-living nitrogen fixer.

In addition to nitrogen-fixing bacteria, high-energy natural events such as lightning, forest fires, and even hot lava flows can cause the fixation of smaller, but

significant, amounts of nitrogen. The high energy of these natural phenomena can break the triple bonds of N2 molecules, thereby making individual
N atoms available for chemical transformation.
Within the last century, humans have become as important a source of fixed nitrogen as all natural sources combined. Burning fossil fuels, using synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers, and cultivating legumes all fix nitrogen. Through these activities, humans have more than doubled the amount of fixed nitrogen that is pumped into
the biosphere every year (Figure 3), the consequences of which are discussed below.Figure 3: Recent increases in anthropogenic N fixation in relation to natural
N fixation. Modified from Vitousek, P. M.. and Matson, P. A. (1993). Agriculture, the global nitrogen cycle, and trace gas flux. The Biogeochemistry of Global
Change: Radiative Trace Gases. R. S. Oremland. New York, Chapman and Hall: 193-208.

Nitrogen uptake

NH4+ Organic N

The ammonium (NH4+) produced by nitrogen-fixing bacteria is usually quickly taken up by a host plant, the bacteria itself, or another soil organism and

incorporated into proteins and other organic nitrogen compounds, like DNA. When organisms nearer the top of the food chain (like us!) eat, we are taking up
nitrogen that has been fixed initially by nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Nitrogen mineralization

Organic N NH4+
After nitrogen is incorporated into organic matter, it is often converted back into inorganic nitrogen by a process called nitrogen mineralization, otherwise known

as decay. When organisms die, decomposers (such as bacteria and fungi) consume the organic matter and lead to the process of decomposition. During this

process, a significant amount of the nitrogen contained within the dead organism is converted to ammonium. Once in the form of ammonium, nitrogen is available
for use by plants or for further transformation into nitrate (NO3-) through the process called nitrification.

Nitrification

NH4+ NO3-

Some of the ammonium produced by decomposition is converted to nitrate (NO3-) via a process called nitrification. The bacteria that carry out

this reaction gain energy from it. Nitrification requires the presence of oxygen, so nitrification can happen only in oxygen-rich environments like circulating or

flowing waters and the surface layers of soils and sediments. The process of nitrification has some important consequences. Ammonium ions (NH4+) are positively

charged and therefore stick (are sorbed) to negatively charged clay particles and soil organic matter. The positive charge prevents ammonium nitrogen from being

washed out of the soil (or leached) by rainfall. In contrast, the negatively charged nitrate ion is not held by soil particles and so can be washed out of the soil,
leading to decreased soil fertility and nitrate enrichment of downstream surface and groundwater.

Denitrification

NO3- N2+ N2O

Through denitrification, oxidized forms of nitrogen such as nitrate (NO3-) and nitrite (NO2-) are converted to dinitrogen (N2) and, to a lesser extent, nitrous

oxide gas (NO2). Denitrification is an anaerobic processthat is carried out by denitrifying bacteria, which convert nitrate to dinitrogen in the following sequence:

NO3- NO2- NO N2O N2.

Nitric oxide and nitrous oxide are gases that have environmental impacts. Nitric oxide (NO) contributes to smog, and nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important

greenhouse gas, thereby contributing to global climate change.

Once converted to dinitrogen, nitrogen is unlikely to be reconverted to a biologically available form because it is a gas and is rapidly lost to

the atmosphere. Denitrification is the only nitrogen transformation that removes nitrogen from ecosystems (essentially irreversibly), and it roughly balances the

amount of nitrogen fixed by the nitrogen fixers described above.

Nitrogen cycle

Schematic representation of the flow of nitrogen through the environment.

The nitrogen cycle is a complicated biogeochemical cycle, and is only summarized here. This cycle involves living components, water, land, and air. Nitrogen is a
very important element in that it is part of both proteins (present in the composition of the amino acids that make those proteins) as well as nucleic acids, such
as DNA and RNA (present in nitrogenous bases).
The largest reservoir of nitrogen is the atmosphere, in which about 78 percent of which made up of nitrogen gas (N2). Nitrogen gas is fixed, in a process
called nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation combines nitrogen with oxygen to create nitrates (NO3). Nitrates can then be used by plants or animals (which eat plants,
or eat animals that have eaten plants).
Nitrogen can be fixed either by lightning, industrial methods (such as for fertilizer), in free nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil, as well as in nitrogen-
fixing bacteria present in roots of legumes (such as rhizobium). Nitrogen-fixing bacteria use certain enzymes that are capable of fixing nitrogen gas into nitrates and
include free bacteria in soil, symbiotic bacteria in legumes, and also cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in water.
After being used by plants and animals, nitrogen is then disposed of in decay and wastes. Decomposers and detritivores ingest the detritus from plants and animals
and nitrogen is changed into ammonia, or nitrogen with 3 hydrogen atoms (NH3). Ammonia is toxic and cannot be used by plants or animals, but nitrite bacteria
present in the soil can take ammonia and turn it into nitritenitrogen with two oxygen atoms (NO 2). Although nitrite is also unusable by most plants and animals,
nitrate bacteria change nitrites back into nitrates, usable by plants and animals. Some nitrates are also converted back into nitrogen gas through the process
of denitrification, which is the opposite of nitrogen-fixing; this process is also called nitrification. Certain denitrifying bacteria are responsible for this.