The Carbon Cycle

The Carbon Cycle

Earth’s system for recycling carbon atoms between the atmosphere, oceans, land (biosphere, pedosphere), and Earth’s interior (geosphere), crucial for life and climate, involving fast processes like photosynthesis/respiration and slow ones like rock formation. Carbon moves from air to plants (photosynthesis), to animals (eating plants), back to air (respiration, decomposition), into soils, oceans, and long-term geological storage as rocks and fossil fuels, with human burning of fossil fuels rapidly adding CO2 to the atmosphere.