The Carbon Cycle
Name ____________________
Date ___________ Hour_____
Found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCycle/
Or click on the resource link on Ms. K’s faculty web page.
Introduction
1. Describe the relative abundance and importance of carbon.
2. Name and compare the time scale for the two categories of the global carbon cycle.
Geological Carbon Cycle
3. Describe the geological processes that have changed and moved carbon in the cycle.
a. meteorite bombardment
b. weathering
c. erosion
d. subduction
e. volcanic eruption
4. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in controlled by the balance between
______
_____________________________ over _______________________ of years.
5. Has the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere always remained the same?
Explain
Biological/Physical Carbon Cycle: Photosynthesis and Respiration
6. Describe the process of photosynthesis and its role in the carbon cycle.
7. Describe the process of respiration and its role in the carbon cycle.
8. What is decomposition and what role does it play?
9. How do coal and oil deposits form?
Carbon on the Land and in the Oceans: The Modern Carbon Cycle
10. What processes cause the most carbon to be exchanged within the atmosphere on
land?
11. Fluctuations in uptake and release of carbon dioxide occur due to what?
12. Observe the graph of Atmospheric Carbon dioxide concentrations. What has
happened to concentrations of carbon dioxide since 1960?
13. What role does fire play in the cycle?
14. What role does deforestation play?
15. What controls carbon dioxide exchange in the oceans?
16. What temperature water favors the uptake of carbon dioxide?
17. What type of currents favor the uptake of carbon dioxide?
18. How does the carbon cycle differ in the oceans compared to land?
Specifically describe and compare the storage of carbon.
The Human Role
19. What does anthropogenic mean?
20. Name the anthropogenic activities that release carbon.
21. Observe the graph of carbon dioxide concentrations obtained from ice core samples.
Describe the pattern on the graph and explain what has caused the fluctuations. (Read the
caption)
22. How much carbon is released by human activities?
b. How much stays in the atmosphere?
c. How much diffuse into the oceans?
d. What happens to the rest?
NASA Missions
23. Describe five tools NASA is using to study the global carbon cycle