Faculty Opinions recommendation of Global carbon cycle: metabolic balance of the open sea.

Author(s):  
Farooq Azam
10.1068/d5708 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gabrys

Sinks are a device within environmental studies that describe spaces and processes that capture and channel wastes. This paper first explores sinks both as a cultural figure of environmental understanding and as an important technoscientific instrument within current attempts to describe the global carbon cycle in relation to climate change. The movement of wastes to and through sinks is often characterized as a metabolic operation, and this metabolic framing forms a key part of this investigation. Drawing on Serres's notion of the parasite, the paper considers how waste, noise, and interference may characterize other types of metabolic exchange that allow for a revised approach to sinks. The second section of this paper considers how waste ‘spills’ across environments in space and time. Spills are a way to describe the movement and exchange of wastes that do not conform to a clear trajectory or network, but, rather, express more formless and even disruptive geographies. Three ‘spills’ then structure this examination of the movement and mutation of waste, including the elusive transfer of carbon found within the ‘missing sinks’ in the biosphere, the indistinct exchanges of carbon and other wastes that occur with human and nonhuman bodies, and the uncertain exchanges and accumulations of carbon wastes in the future. In this investigation I argue that sinks point toward the revision of the notion that environments are or should be in metabolic balance, in favor of more complex and hybrid ecologies and exchanges that incorporate the transformative capacities of waste. Concluding with Bennett's discussion of the ‘ecology of matter’, this paper then suggests that the dynamic qualities of waste and matter require renewed attention to environmental exchanges, practices, and imaginings.


Tellus B ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sile Li ◽  
Andrew J. Jarvis ◽  
David T. Leedal

Author(s):  
Han Sol Jeong ◽  
Sugyeong Hong ◽  
Hee Seon Yoo ◽  
Jin Kim ◽  
Yujeong Kim ◽  
...  

Methane monooxygenase (MMO) has attracted significant attention owing to its crucial role in the global carbon cycle; it impedes greenhouse effects by converting methane to methanol under ambient conditions. The...


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Subhajit Bandopadhyay ◽  
Dany A. Cotrina Sánchez

An unprecedented number of wildfire events during 2019 throughout the Brazilian Amazon caught global attention, due to their massive extent and the associated loss in the Amazonian forest—an ecosystem on which the whole world depends. Such devastating wildfires in the Amazon has strongly hampered the global carbon cycle and significantly reduced forest productivity. In this study, we have quantified such loss of forest productivity in terms of gross primary productivity (GPP), applying a comparative approach using Google Earth Engine. A total of 12 wildfire spots have been identified based on the fire’s extension over the Brazilian Amazon, and we quantified the loss in productivity between 2018 and 2019. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) GPP and MODIS burned area satellite imageries, with a revisit time of 8 days and 30 days, respectively, have been used for this study. We have observed that compared to 2018, the number of wildfire events increased during 2019. But such wildfire events did not hamper the natural annual trend of GPP of the Amazonian ecosystem. However, a significant drop in forest productivity in terms of GPP has been observed. Among all 11 observational sites were recorded with GPP loss, ranging from −18.88 gC m−2 yr−1 to −120.11 gC m−2 yr−1, except site number 3. Such drastic loss in GPP indicates that during 2019 fire events, all of these sites acted as carbon sources rather than carbon sink sites, which may hamper the global carbon cycle and terrestrial CO2 fluxes. Therefore, it is assumed that these findings will also fit for the other Amazonian wildfire sites, as well as for the tropical forest ecosystem as a whole. We hope this study will provide a significant contribution to global carbon cycle research, terrestrial ecosystem studies, sustainable forest management, and climate change in contemporary environmental sciences.


1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atul K. Jain ◽  
Haroon S. Kheshgi ◽  
Martin I. Hoffert ◽  
Donald J. Wuebbles

2009 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 840-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Stuart Chapin III ◽  
Jack McFarland ◽  
A. David McGuire ◽  
Eugenie S. Euskirchen ◽  
Roger W. Ruess ◽  
...  

Science ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 241 (4874) ◽  
pp. 1736-1737
Author(s):  
George M. Woodwell

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Torres Mendonça ◽  
Julia Pongratz ◽  
Christian Reick

<p>The increase in atmospheric CO2 driven by anthropogenic emissions is the main radiative forcing causing climate change. But this increase is not only a result from emissions, but also from changes in the global carbon cycle. These changes arise from feedbacks between climate and the carbon cycle that drive CO2 into or out of the atmosphere in addition to the emissions, thereby either accelerating or buffering climate change. Therefore, understanding the contribution of these feedbacks to the global response of the carbon cycle is crucial in advancing climate research. Currently, this contribution is quantified by the α-β-γ framework (Friedlingstein et al., 2003). But this quantification is only valid for a particular perturbation scenario and time period. In contrast, a recently proposed generalization (Rubino et al., 2016) of this framework for weak perturbations quantifies this contribution for all scenarios and at different time scales. </p><p>Thereby, this generalization provides a systematic framework to investigate the response of the global carbon cycle in terms of the climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. In the present work we employ this framework to study these feedbacks and the airborne fraction in different CMIP5 models. We demonstrate (1) that this generalization of the α-β-γ framework consistently describes the linear dynamics of the carbon cycle in the MPI-ESM; and (2) how by this framework the climate-carbon cycle feedbacks and airborne fraction are quantified at different time scales in CMIP5 models. Our analysis shows that, independently of the perturbation scenario, (1) the net climate-carbon cycle feedback is negative at all time scales; (2) the airborne fraction generally decreases for increasing time scales; and (3) the land biogeochemical feedback dominates the model spread in the airborne fraction at all time scales. This last result therefore emphasizes the need to improve our understanding of this particular feedback.</p><p><strong>References:</strong></p><p>P. Friedlingstein, J.-L. Dufresne, P. Cox, and P. Rayner. How positive is the feedback between climate change and the carbon cycle? Tellus B, 55(2):692–700, 2003.</p><p>M. Rubino, D. Etheridge, C. Trudinger, C. Allison, P. Rayner, I. Enting, R. Mulvaney, L. Steele, R. Langenfelds, W. Sturges, et al. Low atmospheric CO2 levels during the Little Ice Age due to cooling-induced terrestrial uptake. Nature Geoscience, 9(9):691–694, 2016.</p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Ning Zeng ◽  
Jin-Ho Yoon ◽  
Augustin Vintzileos ◽  
G. James Collatz ◽  
Eugenia Kalnay ◽  
...  

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