What Are Some Activities That Impact the Carbon Cycle?
- Fossil fuels are essentially large chains of carbon atoms combined with hydrogen. These fuels include coal, natural gas and petroleum oil. Without human intervention, these fossil fuels are essentially locked out of the carbon cycle as they have been trapped underneath the Earth in solid or liquid form. However, when people burn these fossil fuels for energy, they release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. While the long-term effects of this extra carbon is still being debated by scientists, the carbon cycle itself has become destabilized because the Earth's plants can no longer maintain pace with the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
- Another way humans impact the carbon cycle is by burning and clearing forests. The removal of trees has a double effect on the carbon cycle. Trees can no longer absorb carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. Additionally, when people burn trees and plants, they release the carbon trapped within them, adding that carbon to the atmosphere.
Humans also have the opposite impact by growing plants and trees that naturally would not have grown. Reforestation programs, tree farms and replanting policies for loggers have increased forest coverage in some areas of the world, especially in North America. - In addition to human impacts, natural changes also impact the carbon cycle. The increase in carbon dioxide has resulted in increased absorption in plants across the planet without human aid. This is especially the case in the world's oceans, where plankton levels have increased in response to the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air. This increases the amount of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere.
- Many actions may indirectly impact the carbon cycle, even if they do not involve directly increasing or decreasing the levels of carbon in any particular part of the cycle. For example, impacts to the water cycle affect the atmospheric composition of the Earth as well as the amount of plants alive to absorb carbon. Human additions of pollutants to the atmosphere, such as Freon, can alter the rate at which plants can absorb carbon dioxide.