Fossil Fuels and The Carbon CycleBy Team 3: Alexa Elliott, Victoria Garrett, & James Hammond

By: Alexa Elliott

Question and Hypothesis• Why does CO2 released by the burning of fossil fuels represent a

substantial perturbation to the global carbon cycle?• We hypothesize that the release of CO2 during the burning of fossil

fuels releases an unnatural and excessive amount of carbon into Earth’s carbon cycle, which causes the global carbon cycle to become perturbed and unbalanced.

• We hypothesize this because the way in which humans burn fossil fuels is not something that would be naturally occurring in Earth’s carbon cycle. Humans have only recently begun to use fossil fuels, and the rate at which humans have been consuming and burning these fossil fuels has increased exponentially since the birth of the industry. 

By: Alexa Elliott

The Experiment• Create and observe multiple environments within a greenhouse to imitate the carbon cycle• Manipulate one environment to mimic CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels• Leave one environment alone to mimic no change in the carbon cycle due to lack of CO2

emissions from burning fossil fuels

Text By: Alexa ElliottGraphic by: James Hammond

Introduction to Research• Experimentation and scientific

research show that since humans began burning fossil fuels the balance of the carbon cycle is changing in a way that has never been known to happen before

• There have been direct links between the burning of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect

Text By: Alexa ElliottTable by: James Hammond

ResearchCombustion of fossil fuel is the main source of excessive CO2 release.The graph below shows the Release of CO2 since 1900:

So there is more CO2; why is this a problem?

By: James Hammond

The more CO2 (along with other green house gasses) present in theatmosphere, the more infraredheat that gets trapped.

The Imbalance of CO2 means that there is more CO2 being released(mostly by combustion of fossil fuels) then there is being absorbed by oceans and plant life. The result is a substantial perturbation to the global carbon cycle

ConclusionThe climate is changing. It was bound to happen, whether humans intervened or not. The Earth has gone through so many climate changes over its 4.5 billion years of life that it's enough to make your head spin or melt, or get eroded by corrosive elements in the atmosphere, depending on what geological era you lived through. If we stop using fuels that release carbon, the climate will very slowly return to its cooler state. Interestingly, many of the previous climate changes on the planet were caused by mega-volcanoes that released gases and carbon that strongly resemble what we're releasing from our factories and vehicles today. Very crudely, you might say one industrial revolution equals one mega-volcano.

In conclusion, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are virtually certain to be the dominant factor determining CO2 concentrations throughout the 21st century. The importance of anthropogenic emissions is underlined by the expectation that the proportion of emissions taken up by both ocean and land will decline at high atmospheric CO2 concentrations. There is considerable uncertainty in projections of future CO2 concentration, because of uncertainty about the effects of climate change on the processes determining ocean and land uptake of CO2. These uncertainties do not negate the main finding that anthropogenic emissions will be the main control.

By: Victoria Garrett

Sources• G.D. Farquhar, M.J.R. Fasham, M.L. Goulden, M.

Heimann, V.J. Jaramillo, H.S. Kheshgi, C. Le QuÈrÈ, R.J. Scholes, D.W.R. Wallace. "The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide." Grida. N.p., n.d. Web.

• "Greenhouse Gases." A Students Guide to Global Climate Change. EPA, 12 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

• Kump, Lee R., James F. Kasting, and Robert G. Crane. The Earth System. San Francisco: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

• "Unit 2: Atmosphere." The Habitable Planet Unit 2. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.

By: Victoria Garrett