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The largest and one of the fastest growing human impacts on the carbon cycle and biosphere is the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which directly transfer carbon from the geosphere into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is also produced and released during the calcination of limestone for clinker production. [115]
Soil carbon is present in two forms: inorganic and organic. Soil inorganic carbon consists of mineral forms of carbon, either from weathering of parent material, or from reaction of soil minerals with atmospheric CO 2. Carbonate minerals are the dominant form of soil carbon in desert climates. Soil organic carbon is present as soil organic matter.
Carbon sequestration is part of the natural carbon cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere (soil), geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth. [ citation needed ] Carbon dioxide is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, or physical processes, and stored in long-term reservoirs.
Deforestation, for example, decreases the biosphere's ability to absorb carbon, thus increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. [24] As the industrial use of carbon by humans is a very new dynamic on a geologic scale, it is important to be able to track sources and sinks of carbon in the atmosphere.
Soil respiration is a key ecosystem process that releases carbon from the soil in the form of CO 2. CO 2 is acquired by plants from the atmosphere and converted into organic compounds in the process of photosynthesis. Plants use these organic compounds to build structural components or respire them to release energy.
As an example, the fast carbon cycle is illustrated in the diagram below on the left. This cycle involves relatively short-term biogeochemical processes between the environment and living organisms in the biosphere. It includes movements of carbon between the atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as soils and seafloor ...
A simple radiant heat transfer model treats the earth as a single point and averages outgoing energy; This can be expanded vertically (radiative-convective models), or horizontally; Finally, (coupled) atmosphere–ocean–sea ice global climate models discretise and solve the full equations for mass and energy transfer and radiant exchange.
Soil gases (soil atmosphere [1]) are the gases found in the air space between soil components. The spaces between the solid soil particles, if they do not contain water, are filled with air. The primary soil gases are nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen. [2] Oxygen is critical because it allows for respiration of both plant roots and soil ...