Long description

This is a pictorial diagram illustrates many of the flows of the global carbon cycle between the land, the sea and the atmosphere. The picture shows a stylised land surface, with volcanoes, forests, grassland and other vegetation, factories, and a land-based oil well. Cliffs link the land an ocean and some of them are eroding. The atmosphere is shown, but with no distinguishing drawn features, there is a label at the top of the atmosphere which reads ‘carbon dioxide in the atmosphere’. A cut-away vertical section of the land below the surface shows five layers, from the surface down these are labelled as: soil; rocks; coal deposit; limestone, oil. In the ocean the upper area is labelled as ‘surface layers of ocean’ and the lower as ‘deep ocean’. There are various single and paired labelled arrows that connect these elements. On the land, a pair of one-way arrows connect the vegetation and the ‘carbon dioxide in atmosphere’, one labelled ‘respiration’ flows from the vegetation and the other labelled ‘photosynthesis’ flows to the vegetation. Four one-way arrows flow to ‘carbon dioxide in atmosphere’ from ‘volcanic eruptions’, ‘forest and grassland burning’, ‘fossil fuel burning’ and ‘weathering by erosion’. Below the land surface, a one-way arrow indicates carbon being removed from immediate circulation by becoming part of rocks or coal deposits. In the ocean, a pair of one-way arrows connects the air and the ocean, the pair are labelled ‘transfer between atmosphere and oceans’. Under the surface of the ocean a pair of one-way arrows flow horizontally between ‘phytoplankton’ and the surrounding surface layers of the ocean. A one-way arrow indicates carbon being removed from immediate circulation by falling to the ocean floor.