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.
Climate models suggest that climate change could reduce the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2). However, observational data actually shows that this ability has seen no significant decline in recent decades.
Earth Sciences
Oct 17, 2025
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A team of researchers, led by Cambridge University, has now formulated a method to assess whether carbon removal portfolios can help limit global warming over centuries. The approach also distinguishes between buying credits ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 15, 2025
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A team led by Prof. Liu Xueyan from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new plant-soil nitrogen isotope process model that quantifies the fractional contribution of three nitrogen ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 14, 2025
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New research from the University of St Andrews has shed light on a crucial mechanism of lowering atmospheric CO2 during Earth's past ice ages.
Earth Sciences
Oct 10, 2025
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Since the 1980s, scientists have known fine roots (< 2 mm) are critical to ecosystem carbon cycling, with research long suggesting their contribution to soil carbon accrual may exceed that of aboveground plant parts like ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 9, 2025
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25
Antarctic krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, are an important species in the Southern Ocean ecosystem and global carbon cycle, in part because of their poop. Their dense and rich fecal pellets sink rapidly, transporting carbon ...
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is Earth's largest oceanic current, circling around Antarctica from west to east in alignment with Earth's rotation. This cold ocean current is driven primarily by the westerly wind ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 7, 2025
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Carbon is the chemical element found in the greenhouse gas CO₂ emitted from fossil fuels burned in cars, factories and other sources. When carbon is stored in the ocean instead of remaining in the atmosphere, it helps to ...
Ecology
Oct 7, 2025
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22
In the upper Abbay basin, cradle of the Blue Nile, a team of researchers have predicted soils of the future: what will happen to soil organic carbon if we bet on regenerative agriculture—returning residues, organic manure, ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 6, 2025
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27
The ocean holds gigantic amounts of carbon, much more than all land-based plants and soil. Scientists previously studied these carbon stocks in spring and summer. Now, in two published studies, they have looked at what happens ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 2, 2025
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