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.
After nearly four decades, the world's longest-running soil warming experiment is revealing a surprising result: even "stable" carbon in forest soils can break down as temperatures rise, releasing more CO₂ into the atmosphere. ...
Environment
Apr 28, 2026
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Push a metal corer into a peatland and you pull up something remarkable: a dark, dense, sponge-like material made of partly decomposed plants. This peat is rich in carbon. In some places, that peat has been building up for ...
Environment
Apr 28, 2026
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Rivers worldwide are under severe stress: they are warming, losing oxygen, and as a result emitting increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now quantified these ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 27, 2026
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Lakes are often described as "hotspots" in the global carbon cycle, yet quantifying their "breath"—the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) between water and the atmosphere—has long been notoriously difficult due to extreme variability ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 22, 2026
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Geoengineering could protect the Amazon rainforest from climate change, new research shows. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) aims to artificially cool Earth by increasing the reflection of incoming solar radiation, thereby ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 22, 2026
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Soil biologist Eric Slessarev has some advice for conservationists, landscapers, and farmers with fallow fields: Go touch deep-rooted grass. Or better yet, go plant some. Slessarev, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 21, 2026
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25
The biological carbon pump moves carbon from near the ocean's surface to deeper regions, maintaining the upper ocean's ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. One component of this system is driven by eddies, or relatively ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 20, 2026
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14
Rising stream temperatures may be weakening the foundation of river food webs by altering how carbon moves through these watery ecosystems. In a new study published in the journal Ecosphere, researchers from Northern Arizona ...
Ecology
Apr 17, 2026
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27
Bottom fishing can release CO₂ from the seabed, but the consequences for the climate are not straightforward. New research, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows that disturbing the seabed sets in motion multiple ...
Environment
Apr 16, 2026
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14
Unfortunately for science fiction fans, desert worlds outside our solar system are unlikely to host life, according to new research from the University of Washington. Scientists show that an Earth-sized planet needs at least ...
Astrobiology
Apr 15, 2026
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