The Story of the Carbon Cycle

In honor of Earth Day I thought today I would tell you the story of the carbon cycle.

Many many many years ago, back to the time of the dinosaurs. Wait, go even farther back than that! Volcanoes were erupting and sending carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air. It was launched way up into the atmosphere, and there it stayed.




It was just floating along when all of a sudden it started to rain! All these drops of water started to fall from the sky and the CO₂ thought that looked like great fun!

So, CO₂ decided to hitch a ride with one of the raindrops. As they plummeted together toward the ground, the water and the CO₂ decided to become best friends forever. They called themselves carbonic acid.




They weren't a very strong acid, but they sure did know how to party with the rocks! The stones that the carbonic acid landed on were glad for the new company and reacted by releasing carbon. The carbon from the carbonic acid rock party washed gently into the ocean. There it meet other carbon that had eventually found its way to the ocean too. Some carbon took a longer route to get there, but all carbon ends up in the sea!

Our carbon had seen how much fun the water, CO₂, and rocks had together and wanted a friend of its own!

Unfortunately, the carbon started acting out and upset some nearby plankton. The plankton decided it was best to lock the carbon up in it's shell so it wouldn't cause anymore trouble.

The carbon and the plankton lived together until the end of the plankton's life. When the plankton died it drifted to the bottom of the ocean and eventually became a rock. The carbon now found itself back inside the Earth.




Another CO₂, cousin to our first friend, found the temperature becoming warmer and warmer and all her friends were joining up with rain droplets. She watched as more and more carbonic acid dropped down and made the rocks release more carbon. As it grew hotter she started to get worried.

But then the plants started to grow and grow. They liked the rain, the warm temperatures, and our friend CO₂. This little CO₂ decided that the party life wasn't for her and joined up with a plant instead. The plant pulled her in and placed the carbon into the soil, back to the ground where she started.








The temperature started to even back out again as the amount of carbon in the air was brought back into balance.

Every now and then something would happen that would make the Earth cooler or warmer, but eventually the carbons working with the rocks and the plants would balance out the climate.

Well, until man arrived and started to invent new and amazing things.

Most of the carbon ended up in the ground in forms that man learned to use, like oil, coal, and natural gas.

All of a sudden, carbon that had slept for thousands of years was waking up!

Carbon had slept for so long in a rock at the bottom of the ocean, but what was that noise?! The carbon that had gone into the ocean floor because of plankton was now being drilled back up!

His cousin had ended up as coal deep in the ground and had slept soundly too, but now she was being dug up as well!

As the coal was burned and the oil was burned, our cousin carbons were released back up into the air! Along with their other cousin carbons that hadn't been up there for centuries!

As they gathered together they remembered the fun they had all those years ago, and again joined up with water. It came raining back down as carbonic acid and the cycled continued as it had all these years. Except now there was more carbon being released by man and less trees and vegetation to pull the carbon back into the ground. Man threw more and more carbon up into the sky, not considering what it might do to the delicate balancing act billions of years in the making.

It's getting warmer. 

Earth will be alright, she will make it through this carbon party and eventually balance herself back out.

The question is, can we adapt to the changes we are causing? Can we survive long enough to see the climate come back to its balanced state?

I hope so.



(This story was written using information gathered from The Weather of the Future by Dr. Heidi Cullen. This information can be found in Chapter 2: Seeing Climate Change in Our Past on pages 23-25.)