Question
Are we able to control or predict carbon cycle?
In the carbon cycle, which compartment is still poorly understood or studied? Do we rely on our current estimates? Can we make all the connections of these compartments: atmosphere, land and ocean? Currently, what is missing on C & N cycle models?
All Answers (10)
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Best to read the following paper Canadell, Josep G. Philippe Ciais, Shobhakar Dhakal, Han Dolman, Pierre Friedlingstein, Kevin R Gurney, Alex Held, Robert B Jackson, Corinne Le Quere, Elizabeth L Malone, Dennis S Ojima, Anand Patwardhan, Glen P Peters, Michael R Raupach, Interactions of the carbon cycle, human activity, and the climate system: a research portfolio, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 2, Issue 4, October 2010, Pages 301-311, ISSN 1877-3435, DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2010.08.003. -
Han, thanks a lot -
My field is Environmental health,first of all, children, radiation bioeffects in different lanscape - geochemical conditions. I think it is more local as it is needed the climate system. Excuse, me.
Marina Naboka -
Two main mechnisms are of interest in this regard...the first one is to start carbon fixation and second to prevent more release of carbon dioxide which will directly be impacted on the carbon cycle. -
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Hello,
I believe that control does not exist in nature, but we can make predictions.
Since the models used are not overly simplistic.
The carbon cycle is in an open system, where few variables can be measured accurately -
Hello,
"The history of the circulation of the carbon teaches us that we cannot control the global balances. Therefore it would have been preferable not to alter the natural state so drastically that it existed until the industrial revolution began." From, "Química y Ecosfera" Selecciones de Scientific American. Ed Herman Blume, pag 73
The current phenomenon of the Climatic Change shows us that guessed right that it was him that he wrote the previous paragraph. -
if you stand to control the carbon cycle then you can not. But you can make some prediction to a very little extent.
If you go for investigating the relation b/w the atm., land and ocean in C cycle, then you will get a solid relation among them. For that, better you split the C cycle in two part i) biological C cycle and ii) Geological C cycle. you know the bio. C cycle starts with the incorporation of atm. CO2 to organic matter by autotrophic plants and ends with the decomposition of them. the geological C cycle starts with the incorporation of the C (better to say the organic matter produced by autotrophs) in the soil and marine sediments and goes through the diagenetic process and ends with the burning of fossil fuel and also the erosion processes.
Now the entry and burial of organic C in marine sediments transported by the river and preservation therein takes the C from the bio. c cycle to the geological C cycle.
atm- plant- soil- river water- estuary- burial in marine sediments- and again this sediment comes up and C is freed to atm. -
If we take a look at carbon as a whole, it has taken trees roughly 420 million years to sequester the
into the ground as Peat, and various types of Coal, with the reefs also helping as they make
calcium carbonate (CaCO3).
Humans have been burning down forests to create crop lands, clear cutting large tracts of land, and it has been
accelerating. In addition we are now taking the carbon out of the ground in the form of Natural Gas, Coal,
and Oil, and we are cutting down the forests at an ever increasing rate. This is an exponentially increasing rate
of Atmospheric re-carbonization as CO2 which started slowly about 10,000 years ago, but increased with the
exponential increase in human population, up until we entered the industrial revolution in the late 1600's,
to Early 1700's, at which point the curve too a very sharp upward trend in Atmospheric re-carbonization.
It has taken hundreds of millions of years for nature to sequester, and hundreds of years to re-carbonize.
My guess is that we are in a loosing battle by a factor of between 100 thousand to 1 million to 1.
As a comparison, burning produces CO2 and Water. The water produced in the last 10,000 years has raised the
global sea level elevation by around 100 meters. (Not all is from burning, some is from glacial melting, and some
is from the natural processes of the vertical movements of continents and sea floors).
the"total possible" will be some fraction of the 70% of the surface of the planet that is water by comparing the
difference in the volume of the two Spheres. 4/3 Pi ( R^3 - r^3) in cubic kilometers of additional water where
delta R is 0.1 km. R = 6372.4567 km and r= 6372.3567 km both at the tilt angle of the planet between
23.45 degrees and 23.49 degrees.
What is more alarming is that we are increasing the volume of the Atmosphere, thus we are increasing the
Pressure and Temperature of the Atmosphere at all elevations on the planet above and below sea level.
The second thing is that we are taking an ever greater percentage of the Oxygen we need to breathe, and we
are slowly converting it to CO2, and Water. Fortunately H2O likes to become Oxygen and Hydroxide ions, and as it
gets warmer, we will have more moisture in the atmosphere.
We may eventually do as the Dinosaurs did, move beyond about 40 degrees north and or south of the
equator in order to be able to survive.
For most of the Eocene, the temperature was about 13 degrees C (286.15 K), is is now at 288.15 K, and
gradually rising. The way to track Temperature is to track the Change in Atmospheric Pressure with
elapsed time, which is a proxy for tracking the change in the total volume of the Atmosphere.
One Equation is PV = n R T. so if the Volume goes up, the Pressure and Temperature will also go up.
You can see where this is going. If we do not want the temperature to go up, we have to reduce the
rate of increase in the Volume of the Atmosphere by getting rid of the excess CO2. In short we need to
use... [more] -
Here I am replying to my own reply:
If you think about the carbon cycle, it is a portion of a larger man made change. We remove elements
from inside the Earth, and through combustion (chemical processes) we convert the elements into
primarily Carbon Dioxide and Water. The other things we "mine" or extract are mostly metals that we find useful
for various purposes.
If you view the extraction of material from the Earth as a closed system, then there are only a few things that can
happen to the extracted materials.
1) They can end up atop the Land. (Asphalt, Concrete, Structures, Vehicles Etc.)
2) They can end up in the Atmosphere (CO2, Water, Particulates, Sulfur Dioxide)
3) They can end up in the Ocean (Plastics, Water, Chemicals, Soils....)
4) They can end up buried back in the Earth (Landfills, Deep well injection, Shallow well injection
concrete to fill in mine tunnels)
Of these processes, the ones that cause current and future problems are the ones that make large
changes to the Volume of the Oceans, and, the Volume and Composition of the Atmosphere.
The first (Changes in the Volume of the Oceans) is a Human Inconvenience. The solution is move up,
move out, or fight it with expensive engineering solutions as has been done along both sides of the
Mississippi River.
The second (Increase in the Volume and Composition of the Atmosphere), is the real problem area.
Perhaps one solution would be to stop using Carbon as a substance to move goods and people.
One partial solution could be to use the Sun to make Hydrogen and Oxygen from water, compress
these two gasses, and burn them in modified Internal combustion engines to produce
water, which nature uses to make clouds, rain, snow, fog, Etc. which ends up in the oceans.
The advantage is that it is a closed system that does not require a solution to a Carbon problem
as it does not create a carbon Problem in the Atmosphere.
Can you imagine the advantages of a liquid Hydrogen, Liquid Oxygen propulsion system.
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