Human Interactions with the Carbon Cycle Summary of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Carbon dioxide released by the respiration of all living organisms is taken up by plants, which use it in the process of photosynthesis, in which the carbon is fixed as organic matter and the oxygen is released back into the atmosphere, thus providing food for other organisms and replenishing the oxygen needed to support metabolism. What has made the carbon cycle interesting to policy makers is its relationship to global climate change: increased releases of carbon-containing "greenhouse gases" account for the great majority of "radiative forcing" or increased net retention of solar radiation, which is the primary source of the threats of floods, droughts, intense storms, and the other potential disasters that might result from global warming (see Figure 11.
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has identified the global carbon cycle as a major program element, allocating $221 million of its $1.6 billion budget for 2002 to it (Subcommittee on Global Change Research, 20011. An interagency Carbon Cycle Working Group, advised by an outside scientific steering committee ancl guided by a Carbon Cycle Science Plan (CCSP, Sarmiento ancl Wofsy, 1999)
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The basic purpose of the workshop was to help build bridges between the research communities in the social sciences and the natural sciences that might eventually work together to produce the needed understanding ofthe carbon cycle an understanding that can inform public decisions that could, among other things, prevent disasters from resulting from the ways humanity has been altering the carbon cycle. Members of the working group hoped that a successful workshop would improve communication between the relevant research communities in the natural and social sciences, leading eventually to an expansion of the carbon cycle program element in directions that would better integrate the two domains.
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human activities that affect the carbon cycle (e.g., on energy modeling; on the underlying causes of fossil fuel consumption, agricultural intensification, and other major carbon-related human activities; and on the diffusion of technology in agriculture and energy production)
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: · The future of fossil fuel consumption · Carbon implications of future land use/land cover transformation · Modeling human interactions with the carbon cycle.
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