Natural Processes

• What can natural processes do?

  change the carbon cycle
• Examples of natural events

  wildfires

  volcanic eruptions
• What can natural events do

  alter the magnitude of the carbon stores
• What do wildfires do?

  Rapidly transfer large quantities of carbon from biomass to the atmosphere

  Loss of vegetation decreases photosynthesis = less carbon removed from atmosphere
• What do wildfires do?? - longer term

  • Fires can encourage the growth of new plants - these take in carbon from the atmosphere for photosynthesis
  • Depending on amount and type of regrowth , fires can have a NEUTRAL EFFECT on the amount of atmospheric carbon
• What happens during volcanic eruptions

  carbon stored within the earth in MAGMA is released

  • the majority enters atmosphere as CO2
• What have recent volcanic eruptions done

  Released much less CO2 than human activities. However, there is the potential for a very large eruption to disrupt the carbon cycle significantly