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The Carbon Cycle. Basic background information from NASA's Earth Observatory Reference section.

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Human Interactions with the Carbon Cycle. Summary of a Workshop.

By Paul C. Stern for the National Research Council, Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002).

USGCRP-supported research on the global carbon cycle focuses on: (1) identifying the size and variability of the dynamic reservoirs and fluxes of carbon wit

2005-2007 – testing and implementing a new observational network and intensive field observations and process studies;

enhance sequestration of carbon through active carbon management.

2002-2004 – development of new instrumentation and initial modeling capabilities;

For additional information on the Carbon Cycle Initiative, contact the Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group's Program Office

We are entering an era in which reducing uncertainties about the carbon cycle will be central to answering questions of future climate change and its consequences for humans. Such questions include: What will be the future atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane resulting from environmental changes, human actions, and past and future emissions? To what extent can forest and agriculture management be used to effectively offset emissions of carbon from fossil fuel combustion, regionally, nationally, and globally? How will the natural processes that store carbon in the oceans and on land change in the future? What are the prospects for feedbacks within the climate system, especially those that might prompt large increases in carbon emissions from the land and oceans? Will food security increase or decrease as the composition of the atmosphere continues to change? How do the prospects for carbon storage through increasing the growth of trees and plants compare to and interact with the prospects for storing carbon in the deep oceans and in geological formations?

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