Global Carbon Cycle

Trevor Craig

Energy Science 110

Global Carbon Cycle 16

11/6/11           

This lecture was about the natural carbon cycle of the world, and carbon emissions. There are four major carbon cycles, the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, and finally fossil fuels; carbon accounts for 50% of earth’s biomass. In the ocean atmosphere system 99% of oxygen is in the atmosphere and 1% is in the ocean, 98.5% of carbon is in the ocean and 1.5% is in the atmosphere. We are starting to fill up our reservoirs or sinks for carbon.

When we burn fossil fuel a lot of the carbon ends up in the ocean, in fact about 48% of fossil fuels emissions have ended up in the oceans between the years 1800-1994, reducing the amount that is released into the atmosphere. We are starting to fill our oceans so they will not take as much carbon this can be seen from that fact that in the 1980 to 2005 50% to 60% of fossil fuel emissions ended up in our atmosphere, proof that our oceans are filling up.

The oceans and forests try to fight carbon going into the atmosphere but they cannot keep up with our carbon emissions, so each year 3.3 PgC/yr is unaccounted for from plants and oceans which is what ends up in the atmosphere. Hawaii has been measuring CO2 in their atmosphere and it has been increasing in the past several years, CO2 goes up and down according to the season but in general it has been going up, in 2005 it was about 378 ppm and in about 2010 it was around 389 ppm, so it is rising at a rapid pace. As a trend the more emissions we release as a society the more CO2 we find in the atmosphere. The reason so much CO2 is being released into the atmosphere is because we have almost completely filled our sinks, especially our oceans. In 1850 the annual flux of carbon for oceanic uptake was around 0 but now today it is about -10 PgC/year.

Different fossil fuels have different emissions, gasoline’s emission coefficient is 18.9 kg c/10^6 where things like natural gas have a number of 15.3 kg c/10^6, obviously the burning of gasoline is increasing our CO2 emissions. Our emissions are causing our climates to warm this can be seen from looking at climate graphs. If we look at the environment without taking into account our emissions then our predictions for temperature will be well under the actual observed numbers, so we need to take in account that we are having an effect on our climate. We are affecting our climate every day, how long can we play with it before it breaks.

Carbon sequestration- The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir.

Solvents- The liquid in which a solute is dissolved to form a solution.

ENSC110 Craig Global Carbon Cycle 16