The global process by which the element carbon
is stored and exchanged between the air, oceans, earth, and living things.
The cycle is usually thought of as four main reservoirs of carbon interconnected
by pathways of exchange. The reservoirs are the atmosphere, terrestrial
biosphere (usually includes freshwater systems), oceans, and sediments (includes
fossil fuels). The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between
reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and
biological processes. The ocean contains the largest pool of carbon near
the surface of the Earth, but most of that pool is not involved with rapid
exchange with the atmosphere.
|In any given year, tens of billions of tons of carbon
move between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere. Human activities
add about 5.5 billion tons per year of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
The illustration above shows total amounts of stored carbon in black,
and annual carbon fluxes in purple. (Illustration courtesy NASA Earth
In the carbon cycle, carbon, obtained from the atmosphere as carbon
dioxide, is absorbed by green plants, synthesized into organic compounds,
and then returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The organic compounds,
particularly carbohydrates, are synthesized
in plants from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of chlorophyll
and light by a process known as photosynthesis.
The carbohydrates are then broken down to carbon dioxide and water either
by the plant during respiration or after death by putrefying bacteria
• nitrogen cycle
Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center