carbon cycle, definition of

A global, three-dimensional computer model of the climate system; GCM's are highly complex and they represent the effects of such factors as reflective and absorptive properties of atmospheric water vapor, greenhouse gas concentrations, clouds, annual and daily solar heating, ocean temperatures and ice boundaries. The most recent GCM's include global representations of the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface.

They are often used to model the effects of human induced climate change into the future; but the accuracy of the models are highly dependent upon:

• The accuracy of the initial starting conditions;
• The accuracy of how the climatic processes are modeled, and;
• The accuracy of the assumptions made in the model construction.

• Cornering ChatGPT into an Honest Answer on the Carbon Cycle
  It just requires extreme measures to force it into honesty.
• The Impact of Human CO2 On Atmospheric CO2 – Summary
  The simple physics model – using IPCC’s outflow proportional to level and e-times –proves natural CO2 controls atmospheric CO2. As of 2020, natural CO2 has added about 100 ppm, and human CO2 only 33 ppm, to IPCC’s CO2 level of 280 ppm in 1750.
• The Ocean Is Still Sucking Up Carbon—Maybe More Than We Think
  Recent studies looking at carbon-sequestering microbes suggest we still have a lot to learn about the ocean’s biological carbon pump.
• Will Planting Trees Reduce Global Warming?
  The mutual relationships between forests and climate are actually really rather more complex and not fully understood.
• Why is the CO₂ Concentration Rising?
  They also showed that it is very illogical to think that a slight increase in the up-flux cannot be compensated by a larger down-flux. It’s like increasing the heat energy flow in a house by 5% and expecting that the temperature will keep on rising...
• Estimates of the carbon cycle – vital to predicting climate change – are incorrect, Virginia Tech researchers show
  However, Virginia Tech researchers discovered that when using the accepted numbers for soil respiration, that number in the carbon cycling models is no longer balanced.
• CARBON CYCLE
  The increase in 12C in the atmosphere is, in my opinion, weak evidence that the annual increases are driven only by fossil fuel sources. The atmosphere can’t tell ‘anthropogenic’ carbon dioxide from natural carbon dioxide. It seems unlikely that...
• Claim: Climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years reconciled
  Predictions of future climate change require a clear and nuanced understanding of Earth's past climate. In a study published today in Science Advances, University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa oceanographers fully reconciled climate and carbon cycle trends...
• Ocean carbon uptake widely underestimated
  Previous estimates of the movement of carbon (known as "flux") between the atmosphere and oceans have not accounted for temperature differences at the water's surface and a few metres below.

Related Tags: environment, global warming