1. Explain why the residence time for the vegetation/soil/detritus reservoir is
ID: 292581 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Explain why the residence time for the vegetation/soil/detritus reservoir is so long. How would deforestation affect the carbon storage of this reservoir and the fluxes into and out of it?
2. How would residence time for coal/oil/gas compare to other reservoirs (ocean, plants, asmosphere, etc.)? Explain your reasoning.
3. The flux for fossil fuels and cement production is only shown as outgoing suggesting the reservoir is not in a steady state. Why is the reservoir not in a steady state? Why is there no input flux in this box and arrow diagram? (2)
Atmosphere 750 5.5 Fossil fuels and cement production Vegetation 610 Soils and detritus 1580 2190 92 Surface Ocean 1020 50 ?4. Marine biota DOCExplanation / Answer
Soil, detritus and plants have more residence time because of the fact the processes involved are respiration, transpiration and fossil fuel formation of the debris inside the soil. The residence time of coal, oil and gas are less than the plants and more than the other elements in the carbon cycle as the fossil fuels which has coal, oil and gas are exploited at a faster rate than the previous century for transportation and power production through hydraulic fracking methods. The exploration of oil and gas has contributed to massive increase in air pollution. The flux for fossil fuels and cement production has no incoming flux because it needs no flux but extracts the fossil fuels from the ground and exploits it to release the outgoing carbon to the atmosphere. Since the outgoing carbon emissions cannot be predicted and also this carbon has to be stored seperately, the reservoir will not be in steady state.
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