Carbon Cycle Accelerates Climate Change

One of the most frustrating and potentially dangerous aspects of climate change is the way in which one failing component of the Earth’s ecosystems can lead to an acceleration of the warming process. This process is known as carbon cycle.

Carbon Cycles Caused By Beetles

One carbon cycle is found in British Columbia where there is an outbreak of mountain pine beetles due to warmer climate. These beetles not only destroy the forest but also release carbon into the atmosphere. When trees are killed, they no longer are able to take carbon from the atmosphere. When dead trees start to decompose, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

The outbreak has affected about 33 million acres of lodgepole pines. Bark beetles also have killed huge swaths of pines in the western United States, including about 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers) of trees in Colorado. This could exacerbate the global warming that contributed to the outbreaks in the first place.

Carbon Cycle Turn Carbon Sink Into Carbon Source

Carbon cycle is a vicious cycle created by a warming planet. Carbon cycle turns “carbon sinks” which absorb carbon dioxide than they emit into “carbon source”. This causes planet to be even warmer, thus allowing more creatures such as beetles to survive farther north and at higher elevations. The long-term effect, with computer modeling, estimated that the maximum annual release of 20 megatons of carbon, as compared to the 30 megatons of carbon produced by forest fires.

Carbon Cycle From Ice Melt

Another example is in the very northern parts of Scandinavia and Siberian Russia. In areas that had been built upon permafrost, foundations are sinking and collapsing as this long solid ground is now becoming a muddy swamp. Thousands of years of accumulated peats are being digested by decomposition bacteria. This process emits a massive “belch” of carbon dioxide that had been previously sequestered.

Previous Arctic ice melt data modeling are no longer applicable as the change is now accelerating even faster than the most recent models would suggest. More importantly, as polar ice caps melt, the reflectivity of the Earth (or albedo to meteorologists) decreases, allowing sun’s rays to be even more effective.