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📘 How does carbon move between air, ocean and rock?

You exhale carbon that may once have been in a leaf, a shell, or a fossil fuel. Carbon atoms keep moving among reservoirs—air, organisms, soils, ocean, sediments, and rock—while the speed of each transfer changes dramatically.

6
lessons
~30 min
to learn
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. The carbon cycle has reservoirs and ratesDistinguish carbon reservoirs from fluxes and compare fast and slow carbon-cycle timescales.Carbon is stored in connected reservoirs, but the transfers between them occur at very different rates.
  2. Life moves carbon quicklyExplain how photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition move carbon through living systems and soils.Life moves carbon rapidly between air, water, organisms, and soil while changing its chemical form.
  3. The ocean takes up and redistributes carbonDescribe air-sea exchange, ocean chemistry, circulation, and the biological carbon pump.The ocean absorbs and redistributes carbon through physical, chemical, and biological pathways.
  4. Rock locks carbon slowlyConnect weathering, carbonate formation, sediment burial, tectonics, and volcanism in the slow carbon cycle.Weathering and burial can move carbon into rocks, while tectonics and volcanism eventually return some of it.
  5. Human emissions change the balanceExplain why fossil-fuel and industrial emissions raise atmospheric carbon dioxide despite land and ocean uptake.Human activity transfers geological carbon into the fast cycle faster than natural sinks can remove it.
  6. Following one carbon atomTrace plausible carbon pathways and use reservoir, process, and timescale to interpret emissions.A carbon atom follows a network of possible routes whose destination and residence time depend on process and conditions.

Questions this course answers

What is a reservoir in the carbon cycle?

Reservoirs hold carbon; fluxes describe transfers between them.

Put these ideas in a useful order for reading a carbon-cycle diagram.

Reading the store, process, rate, and destination keeps arrows from looking equally fast.

What does photosynthesis do to carbon dioxide?

Photosynthesis fixes carbon dioxide into sugars and other biomass.

Match each process with its carbon movement.

These processes move carbon into different forms and reservoirs.

Why can colder surface water take up more carbon dioxide?

Temperature affects gas solubility, while circulation and chemistry affect what happens next.

Why is ocean uptake not the same as permanent carbon burial?

The ocean can delay atmospheric return without locking every atom away geologically.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • NASA Earth Observatory, The Carbon Cycle, https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-carbon-cycle/
  • NASA Terra, Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems, https://terra.nasa.gov/science/carbon-cycle-and-ecosystems
  • NOAA Ocean Service, What is the carbon cycle?, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/carbon-cycle.html
  • NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, What is ocean acidification?, https://oceanacidification.noaa.gov/what-is-ocean-acidification/
  • USGS, The geologic carbon cycle, https://www.usgs.gov/programs/water-resources/science/carbon-cycle
  • Wikimedia Commons MediaWiki API, image metadata and thumbnails, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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