Question

Two ways that carbon can get from the ocean to the lithosphere

Answer 1

1. Burning of fossil fuels.

Under natural conditions the release of carbon from fossil fuels occurs slowly, as they are sub ducted into the mantle, and CO2 is released through volcanic activity. However, humans are heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and extract it from the lithosphere in great quantities. Put in to fire a coal, oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels – for industrial movement and power generation for example, neglect the carbon from the fossil fuels and emits it as CO2 into the atmosphere.

2. Land use and land cover change (e.g. deforestation)

Big part of carbon are stored in living plants. Then, land use changes, most importantly the clearance of forests (which are very densely inhabited by plants, and therefore contain a large amount of carbon), can influence the carbon cycle in two ways. Firstly, removing of vegetation will let the plants die which would otherwise be capturing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. And as dense forests are change by crops/pasture land/built environments, there is usually a net decrease in the carbon store, as smaller plants (and worse still, concrete) store far less carbon than large trees. Deforestation also make much more soil to be eroded, and carbon stored in the soil is rapidly taken into rivers.

 

Because the nature is in cycle of the carbon cycle, humans are affected and cause the lead to a number of amplifications and feedbacks. Thereby releasing more CO2 to the atmosphere. Increases in global temperature also affect ocean temperatures, modifying oceanic ecosystems and having the potential to disrupt the oceanic carbon cycle, limiting the ocean’s capability to absorb and store carbon.