The Global Carbon Cycle: a book review

Many scientists such as Dr. David Archer refer to our current period of human-impacted atmospheric and ecologic systems as the anthropocene. What is meant by this is that humans are currently emitted carbon at a scale that is up to 100x as compared to the usual scenario in a non-human impacted atmospheric and ecologic system. Currently the rate of human-based emissions are 10 gigaton carbon C per year while the usual natural carbon-flux is roughly 0.1 gigaton carbon per year.

In The Global Carbon Cycle, feedback loops within carbon flux systems that could possibly mitigate climate change are discussed at length with informative call-out boxes detailing chemical reactions foundational to our climate science field.

While there have been frequent natural oscillations in the global carbon cycle, there have as yet not been any observed changes in the global carbon cycle through recent geologic history that track the speed, the possible veracity and the cause of the current climate change crisis. I highly recommend this book as an excellent reference for both the student and the practitioner.

The Global Carbon Cycle is part of Princeton Primers in Climate, a collection of high-quality inexpensive books on recent developments in climate science. Titles available include Climate and the Oceans and The Cryosphere with six more books soon to be published.