The CO2 Consumers (The Carbon Sinks)
The worlds large rainforests, woodland, grassland and savannah are all carbon sinks.
Trees are particular good at removing carbon from the air. As part of the photosynthesis the trees sequester CO2 and store it as carbon in plant material and in the soil.
As part of the same process oxygen is released back into the air, which sustains animal and human life.
In average 50% of a trees weight is carbon. As trees can live many hundreds of years, they are widely regarded as a safe and natural way of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it for long periods.
It is estimated that vegetation store 600,000,000,000 tons of CO2.
carbon-info.org
Rainforest, woodland, savannah
The oceans
Soil and rocks
Vast quantities of CO2 is also used in natural processes such as the turning of feldspar into clay, sand and potassium carbonate.
Again, the net absorption of CO2 in soil and rocks are higher than the CO2 released. This makes soil and rocks one of the minor Carbon Sinks.
Humans have little impact on the levels of CO2 that soil and rocks can sequester.
Carbon Sink: An ecosystem, which removes more CO2 from the atmosphere (by carbon sequestration) than it releases back into the atmosphere e.g. a net consumption of CO2.
The world's oceans are natural carbon sinks.
Depending on temperature and general water pressure, ocean water is able to absorb and dissolve vast amounts of CO2.
Marine animals extract CO2 from the water to sustain themselves, and more CO2 dissolves in from the air.
The surface water store about 1,020,000,000,000,000 tons of CO2, while the deep waters of the oceans store a mere 40,000,000,000 tons of CO2.
-The CO2 consumers
