Carbon cycling refers to the set of biogeochemical processes that regulate the transformation, transport, and storage of carbon among major Earth system reservoirs, including the atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere, oceans, and lithosphere. It encompasses autotrophic carbon fixation, heterotrophic respiration, decomposition, sedimentation, weathering, and anthropogenic fluxes such as fossil fuel combustion and land-use change. Research on carbon cycling quantifies fluxes and pool sizes, characterizes feedbacks between carbon reservoirs and climate, and employs observational networks, isotopic tracers, and Earth system models to constrain budgets, residence times, and perturbation responses across temporal scales from diurnal to geologic.
An experiment in western China over the past four decades shows that it is possible to tame the expansion of desert lands with greenery, and, in the process, pull excess carbon dioxide out of the sky.
Earth Sciences
Jan 26, 2026
0
165
A new global study shows that increasing soil salinity is systematically reshaping the storage and distribution of soil inorganic carbon (SIC), a key but often-overlooked part of terrestrial ecosystems. The findings, published ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 22, 2026
0
22
A 66 million-year-old mystery behind how our planet transformed from a tropical greenhouse to the ice-capped world of today has been unraveled by scientists. Their new study has revealed that Earth's massive drop in temperature ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 22, 2026
0
664
U.S. forests have stored more carbon in the past two decades than at any time in the last century, an increase attributable to a mix of natural factors and human activity, finds a new study.
Earth Sciences
Jan 21, 2026
1
43
Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined, with soil microorganisms playing the main role. As a result, the global soil carbon cycle—by which carbon enters, moves through, and leaves soils worldwide—exerts ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 19, 2026
0
3697
Beneath the surface of forests, grasslands and farms across the world, vast fungal webs form underground trading systems to exchange nutrients with plant roots, acting as critical climate regulators as they draw down 13 billion ...
Ecology
Jan 14, 2026
1
453
Rivers deliver freshwater, nutrients, and carbon to Earth's oceans, influencing the chemistry of coastal seawater worldwide. Notably, a river's alkalinity and the levels of dissolved inorganic carbon it brings to the sea ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 12, 2026
0
14
Earth system box models are essential tools for reconstructing long-term climatic and environmental evolution and uncovering Earth system mechanisms. To overcome the spatiotemporal resolution limitations of current deep-time ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 6, 2026
0
25
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is the system of currents responsible for shuttling warm water northward and colder, denser water to the south. This "conveyor belt" process helps redistribute heat, ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 6, 2026
1
275
Single-celled algae in the ocean known as coccolithophores play an important role in the marine carbon cycle when they take up bicarbonate from seawater to build their shells. Coccolithophore numbers have been increasing ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 5, 2026
0
14
