The Earth’s Carbon Cycle

Animated diagram of the Earth’s Carbon Cycle and how it has changed over time.

Carbon, in various forms including CO2 and organic materials, is continually exchanged between the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. In the pre-industrial period, these exchanges found a natural equilibrium such that the amount of carbon in each group remained more or less constant.

However, human activities have perturbed the carbon cycle. The large amount of carbon added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has dispersed itself through the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. For more information and selected still frames, one can refer to the original twitter thread: https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/11…

Data visualization ©Dr. Robert Rohde

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