|
About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Subscribe |
|
|
Global carbon cycle is key to understanding climate change mongabay.com May 9, 2007 Despite its importance to mankind, the global carbon cycle is poorly understood. With concerns over climate change mounting, it becomes all the more imperative to understand how carbon is absorbed by the Earth's oceans, vegetation, and atmosphere. Now a new paper aims to demystify the carbon cycle, laying out what is known about the global carbon budget and why it is important to understanding climate change. Written by Dr. R. A. Houghton, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center and one of the world's preeminent carbon cycle experts, the paper lays out the current understanding of the processes responsible for adding carbon (sources) to the atmosphere and for removing it (sinks). "Figuring out where all the carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels ends up is surprisingly difficult, especially when one recognizes that there are only three places it can go: the atmosphere, the oceans and land (plants and soil)," said Houghton.
The paper, titled "Balancing the Global Carbon Budget" (doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140057), is published in the current issue of the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. CITATION: R.A. Houghton (2007) Balancing the Global Carbon Budget. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences Vol. 35: 313-347 (Volume publication date May 2007) (doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140057). First published online as a Review in Advance on January 16, 2007 ABSTRACT: The global carbon budget is, of course, balanced. The conservation of carbon and the first law of thermodynamics are intact. "Balancing the carbon budget" refers to the state of the science in evaluating the terms of the global carbon equation. The annual increases in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, oceans, and land should balance the emissions of carbon from fossil fuels and deforestation. Balancing the carbon budget is not the real issue, however. The real issue is understanding the processes responsible for net sources and sinks of carbon. Such understanding should lead to more accurate predictions of future concentrations of CO2 and more accurate predictions of the rate and extent of climatic change. The recent past may be insufficient for prediction, however. Oceanic and terrestrial sinks that have lessened the rate of growth in atmospheric CO2 until now may diminish as feedbacks between the carbon cycle and climate become more prominent. Comments? News options Liquid error: Template not found languages/english/includes/x/_35.liquid
Tags: carbon sequestration earth science carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions climate science climate change environment green News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements: Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing
|
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 
Photos HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS 
CALENDARS 
CANVAS BAGS 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright mongabay 2010 Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect, an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region. Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant. |
