In Day 1 of this lab, we focused on the carbon cycle in terms of sources and sinks. In the first few parts of this lab, the emphasis has been on human activity – mostly the burning of fossil fuels – as an additional source of carbon that gets emitted into the atmosphere. In the biosphere, carbon is found in the form of organic compounds trapped in living organisms and in the soil; in the lithosphere, it is held in carbonate rocks and other materials like coal; and in the hydrosphere it dissolves in the water to form carbonic acid. As has been in the case in previous labs, we are interested in changes over time – in this case, changes in the global carbon budget. Synthesis-based question →  This will be a question that will require you to  pull together ideas from different places in order to give a complete answer. This file contains annual emissions of carbon (in petagrams) from 1959 to 2014 from fossil-fuel combustion and land-use change (primarily slash and burn). Carboniferous period: A major division of the geological time scale that extends from the end of the Devonian Period (360 million years ago) to the beginning of the Permian Period (299 million years ago). Select cells in rows 4 through 60 of columns A, B, and C. Under the Insert tab, select Line and then choose the first 2-D line. Finally, the image on the right is a schematic of Plant Scherer which is southeast of Atlanta. With the increased production of CO2 by humans over the past two centuries, more and more carbon has been added to the oceans. In Part 1 of this lab, you learned that green plants within the terrestrial biosphere can act both as a carbon sink – as they turn CO2 and water into carbohydrates through photosynthesis – and as a carbon source – as they respire CO2 produced by the metabolism of carbohydrates when the plants need energy. That, factory creates carbon from the combustion/burning of fossil fuels. The carbon cycle. there was a net addition of 4 petagrams of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. When that combustion of fossil fuels takes place, carbon with hydrogen atoms attached to it (hydrocarbons) is transformed to carbon with oxygen attached to it (carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide). Report a problem. To understand how these are connected in a cycle, it is useful to think in terms of sources, sinks, and fluxes. English Given the importance of this process, let’s turn our attention to the terrestrial biosphere as a carbon sink. Acknowledgement: Public domain. Along with the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle, the carbon cycle comprises a sequence of events that are key to … The data come from NASA’s MODIS instrument. How would you best describe general changes in the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and the uptake of carbon by the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial biosphere from 1959 to 2014? These data were derived from two sensors (the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A) on-board NASA’s Aqua satellite. Carbon moves from one storage reservoir to another through a variety of mechanisms. Explain the “Southern ocean divide” and its Watch the times-series animation below, which shows deforestation in Rondônia in western Brazil. Be sure that your visual is clear and could be easily understood by students in another grade level or class with less experience. That answer will be based on information (1) presented by your instructor, (2) found in background sections, or (3) determined by you from data, graphs, pictures, etc. Before moving on to the next section of this lab, it is important to put together the separate pieces of the carbon cycle that were discussed above. Activities have Hypothesis-based question → This will be a question which will require you to stretch your mind little bit. You will see in later labs just how important this relatively small concentration of CO2 is with expect to Earth’s energy balance, but for now we need to focus on the cycle in which atmospheric CO2 is involved. Created: Jan 11, 2017. 2. Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on … This is known as net primary production (NPP). You might be wondering why we are not working with data more recent than 2014. Notice that the anthropogenic (human as source) emissions of carbon is greater than the uptake of carbon by the biosphere and hydrosphere. Click CarbonEmissions_1959-2014 to open the Excel file of interest. carbon_worksheet.doc - The Carbon Cycle Activity Worksheet Instructions Answer the questions below using the reference images You will submit your, Instructions: Answer the questions below using the reference images. When CO2 enters the ocean, a complex series of reactions occur in which the carbon dioxide is transformed into carbonic acid (by reacting with the water), the carbonic acid breaks apart into hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions (which are found in baking soda), and some percentage of the hydrogen ions combine with carbonate ions (which are found in washing soda) to form additional bicarbonate ions. Sediments and sedimentary rock 1,000,000,000 billion tonnes of carbon. As you have seen earlier in this lab, measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii have been made since 1958. The image on the left below shows the percentage of carbon dioxide from the combustion of various fossil fuels. There is not one certain answer to a question of this type. NPP changes over time and space. Challenge activities include writing equations and an extended writing exercise. Carbon can be stored in a variety of reservoirs, including plants and animals, which is why they are considered carbon life forms. b. it constantly makes G3P. The image below shows changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the amount of dissolved CO2 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (i.e., Hawaii). Test out what else you know about this cycle by taking up the quiz below. Q18: How did carbon uptake during 2005-2014 differ from carbon uptake during 1959-1968? A question like this will ask you to speculate about why something is the way it is, for instance. Humans play a major role in the carbon cycle through activities such as the burning of fossil fuels or land development. 2. [Approximately 90% of those anthropogenic carbon emissions came from burning fossil fuels.] You will submit your, Using the diagram above, match the description to the corresponding location in the carbon cycle. Carbon occurs primarily as carbon dioxide (CO2) in air and water, organic carbon (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids) in living and dead organisms, and carbonate ions (CO3-2) in water, rocks, shells, and bones. This preview shows page 1 - 3 out of 3 pages. The land-cover information was derived from data from the MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite. Which form actually contributes the most? Independent Activities: Students will work in pairs completing the carbon cycle. Q9: In the Plant Bowen picture, the cooling towers are highlighted. When volcanoes erupt, they give off carbon dioxide … They learn how carbon atoms travel through the geological (ancient) carbon cycle and the biological/physical carbon cycle. • Can carbon cycle –climate feedbacks improve atmospheric predictive skill? Updated: Feb 22, 2018. docx, 512 KB. Something for us to think about. Define the biogeochemical cycle 2. As a result of data collected in Hawaii, we are better able to understand the effects of the increasing amounts of CO2 that the oceans are absorbing. About this resource. These videos explain how carbon atoms form bonds, break apart, and create the conditions that can lead to global warming. Q26: Which of the three forests appears to be the largest carbon sink, especially for the 1990-1999 period? Activity 15 Teacher Guide: What is the Carbon Cycle Learning Goals 1. .’) that you provide. Q21: Identify one place across the globe where there is a (1) tropical forest, (2) temperate forest, and (3) boreal forest? Phosphorus cycle. You learned in the troposphere lab that carbon dioxide (CO2) makes up about 0.04% of the atmosphere. Explain why this is true or false. The nitrogen cycle. Before we do so, though, it is important for us to remember that the carbon cycle represents a global system, so even though we have looked at the cycle in manageable portions, we have to remember that the processes in each portion are interrelated and any change in one process produces changes in the others. As noted above, changes in the amount of CO2 in seawater also will affect the pH of the water as well as the availability of carbonate ions. As shown top picture below, the terrestrial biosphere absorbs approximately three petagrams of carbon annually. Now, we are going to look at the trends in that same data a little more closely through the power of Microsoft® Excel. Q25: Which of the three forests do you think is the largest carbon sink and why? This lab has 29 short-answer questions you will answer prior to the three big questions (i.e., research questions) Mila has noted above.. The carbon cycle overlaps the rock cycle. This lab has 29 short-answer questions you will answer prior to the three big questions (i.e., research questions) Mila has noted above. Click MODIS Land Cover to open the file in Google™ Earth and including location of these different types of forests. This is the kind of carbon that is found in living plants among other things, and we call it that because it can easily move into and out of the carbon cycle. Q28: What other effects do you think anthropogenic CO2 emissions are having on marine organisms besides the impact on calcifiers described above? The atmospheric, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere can have positive or negative values since they can act as sources or sinks. d. NADPH and ATP are used from the light reactions. There is one last portion of the carbon cycle on which we want to focus. Carbon-cycle-worksheet-EK. Carbon dioxide is converted to sugar used for food. All the best! If you do some tough math, you realize that that left 4 petagrams unaccounted for – i.e. Revelle was very concerned about the greenhouse effect from this emission and was cautious because the carbon cycle was not then well understood. Many people incorrectly link the presence of cooling towers to the presence of nuclear power plants, but all large-scale power plants have them. Do the following to create a graph from the data in that file: Q13: How does the trend in fossil-fuel emissions differ from the trend in land-use change emissions? Learn how carbon moves through Earth's ecosystems and how human activities are altering the carbon cycle. Q12: For each year, what is the relationship between the magnitude of carbon emissions and the magnitude of carbon uptake? Replay the animation in order to answer the question below. Q20: Why didn’t CO2 emissions decrease from 1970 to 2010 like SO2 and NOx emissions did? Describe the role of the ocean in the carbon cycle 3. Q2: Where did the 9 petagrams of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by anthropogenic activities in 2010 end up going? For example, one response from the parts of the carbon cycle system to the increased CO2 levels from fossil fuel combustion could be increased absorption of CO2 by green plants to drive photosynthesis. Typically, the oceans take up approximately two petagrams of carbon each year. Which implies utilizing, chemical energy through fossil fuels within that factory. The movement of carbon from reservoir to reservoir is known as the carbon cycle. Maps of fossil-fuel carbon emissions were developed by the now-defunct CDIAC for all years from 1781 to 2010. Burning organic material, such as fossil fuels, releases carbon dioxide. That is because the lab also is focused on how human activity can influence those processes – and potentially influence the weather and climate on the planet. Man’s activities such as fossil-fuel combustion and deforestation released nine petagrams (where a petagram is 1,000,000,000,000,000 or 1015 grams) of carbon to the atmosphere in 2010. This website and its content is subject to our Terms and Conditions. Then have students watch It’s All About Carbon, a series of short videos produced by National Public Radio. Students learn about the geological (ancient) carbon cycle; they investigate the role of dinosaurs in the carbon cycle, and the eventual storage of carbon in the form of chalk. The same pH diagram you saw in Lab 3 is shown again below. This is the currently selected item. Biogeography. What are the 4 steps of the carbon cycle? It should make sense that, since oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, we would want to concentrate on how carbon moves between the atmosphere and the oceans. What is it that is coming out of the cooling towers? c. RuBP is regenerated in the final chemical reaction. One form of combustion that you ran across in a previous lab (The Troposphere) was slash and burn, which is used to clear out large areas of forest for agriculture and is thus a major cause of deforestation. Why are concentrations higher in one hemisphere compared to the other? Scientists working on the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) program have been making repeated observations of the hydrography, chemistry, and biology of the water column at a station north of Oahu, Hawaii USA. As you examine it, you should be thinking about the relationship between the amount of carbon released by the sources and absorbed by the sinks over the 55 years shown, as well as the trends in those processes over that time frame. Carbon flows between each reservoir on the earth in an exchange called the carbon cycle, which has slow and fast components. that sphere is acting as a carbon sink). Q10: What do you think would be the effect on life on this planet if the kind of net release of carbon described above for 2010 were to continue for the next 50 years? Did the pH level ever get to the point where the ocean water was acidic? Next lesson. The carbon cycle graphic you explored in Section 2 only shows data from 2010. GLOBE Carbon Cycle Developed by the University of New Hampshire, the GLOBE Carbon Cycle activities are divided into 5 categories. Q23: Which forests have large positive values of NPP during each month (i.e., what forests have a green color year-round)? Read more. Also, fungi and bacteria can break down the carbon compounds in dead plants and animals and convert the carbon to CO2 if oxygen is present. To that end, take a look at the picture of the 2010 global carbon budget that is found below and that also opened this section. Practically all the carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere exists in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Where has more and more of the carbon been going? The image on the left below shows changes in seawater pH and the concentration of carbonate ions near Hawaii. Conclusion What I Learned Look at country-level CO2 emissions in 2014 to answer Q18. The graphic below shows the amount of carbon released from the main sources and taken in by the main sinks from 1959 to 2014. We are made of carbon, we eat carbon, and our civilizationsour economies, our homes, our means of transportare built on carbon. We need carbon, but that need is also entwined with one of the most serious problems facing us today: global climate change. Click HOT_MaunaLoa to open the file in Google™ Earth and see the location of the HOT measurements relative to the Mauna Loa station. through Earth’s systems. Ideally, the Earth would have a ‘balanced spreadsheet’ where those two amounts were equal; as you examine the picture you should consider whether this was the case in 2010. The carbon cycle involves a series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment. For example, in the food chain, plants move carbon from the atmosphere into the biosphere through photosynthesis. Big idea: The Calvin cycle: Reducing CO 2 to sugar Answer the following questions as you read modules 7.10–7.11: 1. Carbon enters the atmosphere as CO2 CO2 is absorbed by autotrophs such as green plants While it may be hard to imagine that plants get their mass from water and an invisible gas in the air, the time-lapse photograph of wheat-grass growing may make that more believable. The graphic below shows changes in those five processes from 1959 to 2010. This lab is concerned with the different processes comprising the carbon cycle, but its importance goes beyond just becoming familiar with the various ways that carbon is transformed and transported around the globe. The video also talked about “old slow carbon”, which is the kind found in fossil fuels. The Excel data allowed us to look at trends in emissions and uptake of carbon from various sources and sinks over time. Scientists are still trying to figure out which of the three forest types is the largest carbon sink. Carbon is used by plants to build leaves and stems, which are then digested by animals and used for cellular growth. Alignment to National Standards We can explore these changes for one year by clicking on NPP_2010 to open this file in Google™ Earth and watching the animation of the variation of the NPP values for different places over that year. Green plants can take in that CO2, combine it with water (H2O) and make carbohydrates (literally, hydrated carbon) through the process of photosynthesis. The collection of chemical pathways by which carbon moves between Earth systems is called the carbon cycle, and it is the flow of carbon through this cycle that ties together the functioning of the Earth’s atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and oceans to regulate the climate of our planet. (Hint: This has an important relationship to the matter cycle you considered in the Troposphere lab.). More carbon is moving to the atmosphere as humans get rid of forests by burning the trees. Each video is about three minutes long. ... Save for later. As with the terrestrial biosphere, the oceans (the largest component of the hydrosphere) can function as either a carbon source or a carbon sink. They consider how human activities disturb the carbon cycle by emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Students will understand that carbon is critical to the biosphere and must continue cycling to support life on earth. Q15: From what regions/countries was most of the carbon emitted in 1950? Carbon cycles far more slowly through geological processes such as sedimentation. Carbon cycle – three-level reading guide – read about the carbon cycle using a three-level reading guide. Why it is not important to remember all the parts of that complex series of reactions, it is valuable to understand one of its effects: the removal of carbonate ions that it makes it more difficult for marine organisms (known as calcifiers) to grow shells. components of the carbon cycle. The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), which provides us with most of the data in this lab, was shut down in 2016.
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