Strengths and Limitations
- Powers most to all human technologies
- Inorganic affects a small portion of the Carbon Cycle in its entirety, limited to merely minerals (Mg, Na, K, etc.
Human Interaction
- Inorganic consists of fossil fuels, which originates from the early formation of its carbon species. Humans use these fossil fuels, which continues the process of the inorganic cycle – fossil fuels burn up in the atmosphere, creating carbon dioxide once again, thus cycling along both carbon cycles.
- Human usage: Practically everything; cars, manufacturing companies, etc. – people rely on the inorganic cycle to supply them with necessary carbon species to power their everyday technologies.
Relation & Distinction to Organic Carbon Cycle
What Happens When Change Occurs?
Distinction to The Organic Carbon Cycle
- About a third of soil carbon is stored in inorganic forms, such as calcium carbonate
- CO2, a form of inorganic carbon, can be found in oceans because of its atmospheric dissolution throughout the carbon cycle.
- As said in maintaining balance, CO2 emissions increase the levels of oceanic acidity.
- because of this increase of acid levels, it causes rocks and other materials within the oceans to weather, signs of the occurence of carbon cycle in motion – which leads to many different changes within the inorganic portion of the cycle.
Relation to Organic Carbon
- Oceans contain the greatest quantity of actively cycled carbon in this world and are second only to the lithosphere in the amount of carbon they store.
- The oceans' surface layer holds large amounts of dissolved organic carbon that is exchanged rapidly with the atmosphere.
- The deep layer's concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) is about 15% higher than that of the surface layer.
- DIC is stored in the deep layer for much longer periods of time.
- Thermohaline circulation exchanges carbon between these two layers.
- Carbon enters the ocean mainly through the dissolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is converted into carbonate.
- It can also enter the oceans through rivers as dissolved organic carbon.
Inorganic Carbon Cycle
Inorganic Carbon Cycle
Both Organic and Inorganic Cycles are part of the entire Carbon Cycle:
- Inorganic accounts for a smaller portion in comparison to Organic.
Inorganic Compounds:
- do not have carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen
- ex. Sodium Chloride (NaCl), Water (H2O), Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide
Josh Syre
Trevor Williamson
Transfer/Transformation Processes
- Inorganic carbon cycle contains some species like:
- carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, bicarbonate anion, and carbonate anion.
- However, carbon dioxide is in the carbon cycle, too – proving the relation between inorganic and organic carbon cycles.
Maintaining Balance
- It is converted by organisms into organic carbon through photosynthesis and can either be exchanged throughout the food chain or precipitated into the ocean's deeper, more carbon rich layers as dead soft tissue or in shells as calcium carbonate.
- It circulates in this layer for long periods of time before either being deposited as sediment or, eventually, returned to the surface waters through thermohaline circulation.
- Oceanic absorption of CO2 is one of the most important forms of carbon sequestering limiting the human-caused rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
- However, this process is limited by a number of factors. Because the rate of CO2 dissolution in the ocean is dependent on the weathering of rocks and this process takes place slower than current rates of human greenhouse gas emissions, ocean CO2 uptake will decrease in the future.
- CO2 absorption also makes water more acidic, which affects ocean biosystems.
- The projected rate of increasing oceanic acidity could slow the biological precipitation of calcium carbonates, thus decreasing the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.