why co2 is not perfect for biogeochemical cycle?
Answers
On land, carbon is stored in soil as a result of the decomposition of living organisms or the weathering of terrestrial rock and minerals. This carbon can be leached into the water reservoirs by surface runoff. Deeper underground, on land and at sea, are fossil fuels: the anaerobically-decomposed remains of plants that take millions of years to form. Fossil fuels are considered a non-renewable resource because their use far exceeds their rate of formation. A non-renewable resource is either regenerated very slowly or not at all. Another way for carbon to enter the atmosphere is from land by the eruption of volcanoes and other geothermal systems. Carbon sediments from the ocean floor are taken deep within the earth by the process of subduction: the movement of one tectonic plate beneath another. Carbon is released as carbon dioxide when a volcano erupts or from volcanic hydrothermal vents.
Carbon dioxide is also added to the atmosphere by the breeding and raising of livestock. The large numbers of land animals raised to feed the earth’s growing population results in increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere due to farming practices, respiration, and methane production. This is another example of how human activity indirectly affects biogeochemical cycles in a significant way. Although much of the debate about the future effects of increasing atmospheric carbon on climate change focuses on fossils fuels, scientists take natural processes, such as volcanoes and respiration, into account as they model and predict the future impact of this increase.