Carbon Cycle Balance

The net result of this recycling is that our atmosphere now gains a total of 5 gigatonnes (1 gigatonne = 1x1012 kilograms) of carbon annually. Nearly all of this ends up in gases that are greenhouse gases; therefore the carbon cycle becomes very important to understand and control. Also, the annual flow of carbon to our atmosphere has increased each year, which has pretty much been the scenario since the Industrial Revolution began around the 1850s.

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