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1. (2 points) The following natural sources and sinks of CO2 are taken directly

ID: 114041 • Letter: 1

Question

1. (2 points) The following natural sources and sinks of CO2 are taken directly from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) most recent Assessment Report (AR5) and are given in units of petagrams of carbon per year (PgC/yr: 1 Pg 1015 g). Solve for rate of change in atmospheric CO2 inventory given the following sources and sinks. Be sure your answer has units and be clear whether atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same. Sources 60.7 PgC/yr Ocean to atmosphere flux River/Lake to atmosphere flux 1 PgC/yr Land-based respiration and fires 107.2 PgC/yr Volcanoes 0.1 PgC/yr Sinks Atmosphere to ocean flux Photosynthesis on land 60 PgC/yr 108.9 PgC/yr 0.3 PeClyr Rock weathering

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

Since, total natural sources produces amount of carbon is equal to 169PgC/year

And, total sink amount of carbon is equal to 169.2 PgC/ year.

Therefore, we can easily infer that sink rate is more than natural production of carbon. Hence, rate of sinks is increasing in atmosphere.