The exchange of carbon includes:

– Respiration,

– Transpiration,

– Combustion, and

– Decomposition.

Arturo Bugarin Correa -Vulcan!

The biosphere contains organic carbon in living and dead organisms, as well as in soils: about 500 gigatons of carbon is in plants and other living organisms and approximately 1,500 gigatons in soil. Carbon in the terrestrial biosphere is mostly organic; the soil contains also inorganic carbon such as calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). Combustion and respiration cause the release of organic carbon into the atmosphere. Organic carbon may turn into the inert carbon in soil and then be washed into oceans or return to the atmosphere.

Jamie Tobin “City-Carbon”

Humans influence the carbon cycle by changing the terrestrial and oceanic biosphere. By affecting the ecosystem’s productivity they change its ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere. They modify the land use, change the land cover, and reduce the ecosystems’ biodiversity and resilience to environmental stresses. Forests hold large amounts of carbon; removing them for agricultural, industrial, or urbanization related purpose causes that more carbon stays in the atmosphere. Air pollution, temperature increase, agricultural practices, and land erosion are increasing decomposition processes and washing carbon out of soils to the atmosphere.

Carbon (as CO₂ and CO) returns to the atmosphere after burning of a substance such as coal, wood or an active volcano content. Ash is another residue left after burning, as a solid remains of fire, incineration, or combustion; for example, in a fireplace or at the end of a cigarette. Ash remaining after a scientific sample is burned is used in analytical chemistry to get information about its content. One may find many cultural and social connotations in literature, religions, and cultural rituals, related to ash and the remains left from cremation.