Carbon Cycle Analysis

Carbon is part of our bodies but it's also part of our current industries, therefore, Carbon compounds from history plants and algae structure the fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, which we use today as energy sources. Hence, when these fossil fuels are burned carbon dioxide is released keen on the air, most important to higher and advanced levels of atmospheric. Furthermore, the increase in level affect earth's climate and is a main environmental anxiety worldwide. It is also economically important to human’s appearance of fossil fuels. (Rosenthal, Y. Seitzinger, S. Smetacek, V. Steffen, W. (2000)). Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is used by photosynthetic organisms and used to make organic molecules which journey through food chains. Image credit: Biogeochemical cycles: Figure 3 Acordingly, to OpenStax College, Biology, CC BY 4.0; modification of work by John M. Evans and Howard Perlman, USGS

Carbon moves from the atmosphere to plants. Carbon in the atmosphere is attached to oxygen in a gas called carbon dioxide (CO2). Therefore, Carbon dioxide is pulled from the air by plants to produce food through photosynthesis for plant growth. Photosynthesis is a process where plants take in carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) from the air and soil. Within the plant cell the water loses electrons, while the carbon dioxide is reduced meaning it gains electrons. This transforms the water into oxygen and the carbon dioxide into glucose. The plant then releases the oxygen back into the air and stores energy within the glucose molecules.

However, carbon moves from plants to animals through food chains, the carbon that is in plants moves to the animals that eat them. Animals that eat other animals get the carbon from their food too. Carbon moves from plants and animals to soils. Furthermore, when plants and animals die their bodies, wood and leaves decays bringing the carbon into the ground. Some are buried and will become fossil fuels in millions and millions of years. Carbon moves from living things to the atmosphere. Each time you exhale carbon dioxide gas (CO2) is released into the atmosphere. Animals and plants need to get rid of carbon dioxide gas through a process called respiration.

Accordingly, to Delworth, T. and S. Manabe. [1989], Carbon moves from fossil fuels to the atmosphere when fuels are burned. When humans burn fossil fuels to power factories, power plants, cars and trucks the carbon quickly enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas.

Carbon exists in the air mainly as carbon dioxide gas. Therefore, it dissolves in water and reacts with water molecules to create bicarbonate. Photosynthesis by land plants or bacteria, also algae converts carbon dioxide and bicarbonate into organic molecules. Furthermore, Organic molecules made by photosynthesizes are passed during food chains and cellular respiration converts the Organic carbon flipside into carbon dioxide gas. Enduring storage of organic carbon occur when matter from living organisms is buried deep underground or sinks to the base of the ocean and form sedimentary rock. Volcanic activity moreover, more of late human burning of fossil fuels brings this stored carbon back into the carbon cycle. Even though the formation of fossil fuel happens on a slow geologic time scale, human release of the carbon they have is on a very quick time scale.

Carbon enters all food webs both terrestrial and aquatic, through autotrophs or nature-feeders. However, all of these autotrophs are photosynthesizes, for example plants or algae.

Autotrophs imprison carbon dioxide from the air or bicarbonate ions from the water and utilize them to make organic compounds such as glucose. Heterotrophs, or additional-feeders, such as humans, consume the organic molecules and the organic carbon is conceded through food chains and webs.

Carbon cycle goes back to the atmosphere or ocean to release the energy stored in carbon-containing molecules, for instance sugars, autotrophs with heterotrophs break these molecules break down in a process called cellular respiration. In this process, the carbons of the molecule are on the loose as carbon dioxide. Decomposers too release organic compounds along with carbon dioxide when they break down dead organisms and waste products.

Carbon can cycle rapidly throughout this biological pathway, particularly in aquatic ecosystems. Overall, an estimated 1,000 to 100,000 million metric tons of carbon shift through the biological cycle

The geological pathway of the carbon cycle takes a large amount than the biological pathway described above. Carbon may be stored for extended period of time in the atmosphere, bodies of liquid water typically oceans ocean sediment, soil, rocks, fossil fuels, and Land’s center. The intensity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is influenced by the reservoir of carbon in the oceans and vice versa. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in water and reacts with water molecules. J. Freer et el (1995).

Furthermore, carbonate released in this process combines with ions to make calcium carbonate. When the organisms die their remains may sink and eventually become part of the sediment on the ocean floor. Over geologic time, the sediment turns into limestone which is the largest carbon reservoir on Land.

Hence, on land carbon is stored in soil the same as organic carbon from the decomposition of living organisms or as inorganic carbon as of weathering of terrestrial rock and minerals. Deeper under the ground are fossil fuels for example oil, coal, and natural gas which are the leftovers of plants decomposed under anaerobic oxygen free conditions. Fossil fuels take millions of years to structure. When humans burn them carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

A different way for carbon to enter the atmosphere is by the outbreak of volcanoes. Carbon containing sediments in the ocean floor are taken deep inside the Land in a process called subduction, in which one tectonic plate moves under one more. This process forms carbon dioxide which can be released into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions or hydrothermal vents.

The greenhouse effect is caused by the increase in the atmosphere of a diversity of greenhouse gases, for instance carbon dioxide and methane. Deforestation has also intended that there are less trees to carry out photosynthesis, and then there is even more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Even though the oceans and forests absorb carbon dioxide, they cannot absorb adequate to lessen the problem. One flight abroad on a summer holiday produce more Carbon dioxide per passenger than the all the take a break of the yearly Carbon dioxide production allocated per person

Global Warming the Greenhouse Effect of these greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is the one which is most interconnected to human activity, as it is being released in vast quantities by burning fossil fuels.

Solar radiation passes through the atmosphere and is absorbed by the Land's surface.

This is next re-emitted as heat radiation.

The increasing level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are trapping this heat energy and preventing its get away into space.

It is this trapped energy which is raising the Land’s normal temperature. Fossil fuels are considered a nonrenewable resource because they are being used up a lot earlier than they can be produced by geological processes.

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When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is released into the air. Increasing use of fossil fuels has led to important levels of atmospheric. Deforestation the cutting-down of forests is also a major donor to increasing

Human activities can damage the ozone layer and therefore allow more harmful ultraviolet rays to arrive at the Land’s surface.

Refrigerators, plastic foams and aerosol sprays used to include chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons or CFC’s for short.

What matters that there is lot in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas. When in the atmosphere, it traps heat and keeps it from radiating into space. Ozone is composed of three oxygen atoms. It is present all through the atmosphere except is thickest in a layer called the ozone layer, at a height of 25km above sea level.

If this radiation reaches the land, it can cause extensive harm to living organisms.

It can result in skin cancer and waterfall formation in the eyes.

The ozone layer absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Also, while uptake of surplus carbon dioxide by the oceans might seem fine from a greenhouse gas outlook, it may not be good at all from the perspective of sea life. So, dissolving more carbon dioxide in water causes the water to become more acidic. More acidic water can, in turn, decrease concentrations and make it harder for marine organisms to build and uphold their shells of increasing temperatures and higher acidity can harm sea life and have been associated to coral bleaching.

Nitrogen is one of the most important elements in the chemistry of living creatures, it makes up about 78% of Land's atmosphere by volume, far surpassing the oxygen we often think of as 'air'. (Vitousek, P. M.; Menge, D. N. L.; Reed, S. C.; Cleveland, C. C. (2013)

Image credit: modified from Nitrogen cycle by Johann Dréo (CC BY-SA 3.0); the modified image is licensed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license

But having nitrogen around and being able to make use of it are two different things, the growth of all organisms depends on the availability of mineral nutrients, nitrogen is the most important nutrient. The nitrogen cycle traces the path of nitrogen, in many different chemical forms, through the environment and living organisms. plants and animals, have no good way to convert it into a usable form. Plants and animals just don't have the right enzymes to capture, or fix, atmospheric nitrogen.

Still, nitrogen is part of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. And nitrogen comes from bacteria.

Nitrogen enters the living world by way of bacteria and other single-celled prokaryotes, which convert atmospheric nitrogen into biologically usable forms in a process called nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation is the process by which atmospheric nitrogen is converted by either a natural or an industrial means to a form of nitrogen such as ammonia. Some species of nitrogen-fixing bacteria are free-living in soil or water, while others are useful symbionts that live within of plants.

Nitrogen-fixing microorganisms imprison atmospheric nitrogen by converting it to ammonia {NH} which can be in use by plants and used to make organic molecules. The nitrogen-containing molecules are passed to animals when the plants are eaten. They may be built-in into the animal's body or broken down and excreted as waste, for example the urea found in urine.

Prokaryotes play several roles in the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil and inside the root nodules of some plants convert nitrogen gas in the atmosphere to ammonia. Nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia to nitrites or nitrates. Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are all fixed nitrogen and can be absorbed by plants. Denitrifying bacteria converts nitrates back to nitrogen gas.

Nitrogen gas from the atmosphere is fixed into organic nitrogen by nitrogen-fixing bacteria. This organic nitrogen enters terrestrial food webs. It leaves the food webs as nitrogenous wastes in the soil. Ammonification of this nitrogenous waste by bacteria and fungi in the soil converts the organic nitrogen to ammonium ion (NH4) plus. Ammonium is converted to nitrite then to nitrate NO3 deficiency by nitrifying bacteria. Denitrifying bacteria convert the nitrate back into nitrogen gas, which reenters the atmosphere.

In natural ecosystems processes, such as primary production and decomposition, are partial by the available contribute of nitrogen. In other words, nitrogen is often the limiting nutrient, the nutrient that's in direct supply and thus limits the growth of organisms or population.

We humans may not be capable to fix nitrogen biologically, but we surely do industrially using a chemical method called the Haber Bosch process, in which is reacted with hydrogen at high temperatures. Nearly all of this fixed nitrogen goes to build fertilizers we use on our lawns, gardens, and agricultural fields. Human activity releases nitrogen into the environment by two major means: combustion of fossil fuels and use of nitrogen containing fertilizers in agriculture. Both processes increase levels of nitrogen containing compounds in the atmosphere. Elevated levels of atmospheric nitrogen are connected with harmful effects, like the production of acid rain as nitric acid and contributions to the greenhouse effect as nitrous oxide. When the oxides of nitrogen and the sulfur dioxide combine with clouds, they form dilute sulfuric and nitric acids in that order which results into acid rain. When this rain falls to the ground, it has a to some extent acidic pH and is known as acid rain.

Acid rain in addition has overwhelming effects on buildings made of limestone and can gradually destroy stone statues and carvings. Acid Rain also destroys fabric of the building .

Furthermore, when artificial fertilizers containing nitrogen and phosphorus are used in agriculture, the surplus fertilizer may be washed into lakes, streams, and rivers by outside overflow. A major effect from fertilizer extra is saltwater and freshwater eutrophication. In this process, nutrient runoff causes overgrowth, or a 'flower,' of algae or other microorganisms. Lacking the nutrient runoff, they were limited in their growth by accessibility of nitrogen or phosphorus.

Carbon is present in all organic molecules; carbon compounds contain large amounts of energy, which humans use as fuel. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in water, combining with water molecules to form carbonic acid, which then ionizes to carbonate and bicarbonate ions. Human activity can release nitrogen into the environment by the combustion of fossil fuels and by the use of artificial fertilizers in agriculture. Commercially produced ammonia is used to make a wide variety of nitrogen compounds, including fertilizer and explosives