Biogeochemical Cycles

Carbon and other biogeochemical cycles

Measuring, monitoring & modeling ecosystem cycling

There and back again: mantle xeon has a story to tell

Xenon isotopes tell the story of volatiles in Earth's mantle

Delivery of carbon. nitrogen, and sulphur to the silicate Earth by a giant impact

The Global Water Cycle:

Woods Hole

Water cycle video

With a grain of salt      

Water cycle diagram 

Deep-Earth chemistry

Where is Earth's water? 

Water in a changing world  

Water is always on the move

An oceanographer and the water

The Blue Planet's new water budget

Targeting water cycles in deep Earth

Volcanoes deliver two flavors of water

The ocean and the global water cycle

A digital twin of the terrestrial water cycle

Feature story from NASA on the water cycle

Big uncertatinties in the global water budget

How irrigation in Asia affects rainfall in Africa

New technology to monitor African water cycle

Climate models overestimate rainfall increases

Water flow to the oceans under the land surface

The water cycle amplifies abrupt climate change

Fault actvity linked to seawater entering the Earth

A graceful way to study daily water storage on land

Many water cycle diagrams promote misconceptions

NASA estimates 'liquid assets' of world's water budget 

How much modification can Earth's water cycle handle?

Trees' surprising role in the boreal water cycle quantified

Improving understanding of the global cydrological Cycle

Earth's water cycle intensifying with atmospheric warming

Global significance of the changing freshwater carbon cycle

Hydrology research provides 'missing link' in water modeling

New ORNL tool developed to assess global freshwater stress

In measuring gas exchange between water and air, size matters

WATCH Project: researchers put new spin on world's water cycle

Limits to the impact of empirical correction on simulation of the water cycle

The recycling rate of atmospheric moisture over the past two decades (1988–2009) 

Cryosphere   Ice Caps   Ice Sheets   Glaciers   Moraines    Definition from Wikipedia

Explanation of hydrological cycle, surface temperature, solar radiation for global climate change

Assessment of transbboundary aquifers of the world - vulnerability arising from human water use

Mapping groundwater recharge in Africa from ground observations - implications for water security  

CMIP5update 'Inter-modal variability and biases of the global water cycle in CMIP3 coupled climate models'

The Global Carbon Cycle:

Carbon cycling

Reducing carbon

Global carbon atlas

NASA - carbon cycle

How life alters climate

The carbon dioxide loop 

3D carbon goes metallic

US Carbon footprint maps  

Carbon goes with the flow 

How dicarbon breaks apart

Global Carbon Budget 2014

Global Carbon Budget 2019

The deep ocean's carbon exhaust

The Amazon's carbon tipping point

Tracing carbon's ffate iin the oceans

Are we headed for a sixth extinction?

Scientists tackle the carbon conundrum

Ironing out the details of the carbon cycle

Measuring carbon's flow from land to sea

Tracing the path of carbon in North America

Extreme weather, climate and the carbon cycle

Focus on extreme events and the carbon cycle

How and when was carbon distributed on Earth? 

OCO-2 global visualization (Sept 2014-Sept 2015)

Basalts turn CO2 into stone for permanent storage

The future of the carbon cycle in a changing climate

New measurement device: CO2  as geothermometer

Microbial influences on subduction zone carbon cycling

Carbon seen bonding with six other atoms for the first time 

Reducing uncertainty in projections of terrestrial carbon uptake

A new look at preindustrial carbon release from the deep ocean

Improving carbon cycle projections for better carbon management

Historical rainfall levels are significant in carbon emissions from soil

Research reveals how global warming will impact Earth's carbon cycle

Sensitivity of carbon cycle to tropical temperature variations has doubled

Scientists quantify global volcanic CO2 venting: estimate total carbon Earth

New study illuminates 55 million years of the carbon cycle and climate history

New insights about carbon and ice could clarify inner workings of Earth, other planets   

Interactions of the carbon cycle, human activity, and the climate system: a research portfolio

The topology of non-linear global carbon dynamics: from tipping points to planetary boundaries 

Methane:  

Global methane budget 2020

MethaneAIR and MethaneSAT

New key players in the methane cycle

Methane hydrates and global warming

Methane: everything you need to know

Masses of methane from mud volcanoes

International Methane Emissions Observatory

Origin of massive methane reservoir identified

Study identifies prime source of ocean methane

Unexpected natural source of methane discovered

Scientists report breakthrough in detecting methane

Crustal fingers release methane gas from the seafloor

Arctic methane deposits 'starting to release'. scientists say

Audio reveals sizes of methane bubbles rising from the seafloor

Global methane emissions have risen nearly 10% over the last 20 years

Pre-industrial rise in methane gas had natural and anthropogenic causes

A 2500 square-mile methane plume is silently hovering over the Western USA

Life on the thermodynamic edge: respiratory growth of an acetotrophic methanogen

Atmospheric carbon:

CarbonTracker free tropospere CO2 

Carbon's role in atmosphere formation       

Status of black carbon monitoring in ambient air in Europe

Symbiotic fungi inhabiting plant roots have major impact on atmospheric carbon

Soil carbon:

How does soil store CO2? 

Soil carbon 'blowing in the wind'

Carbon buried in the soil rises again

Coming to consensus on soil carbon

The missing link in carbon accounting

Funghi may determine the future of soil carbon

Buried fossil soils found to be awash in carbon

Researchers improve soil carbon cycling models

Exploring the fate of the Earth's storehouse of carbon

Loss of soil carbon due to climate change will be 'huge'

Tropical ecosystems regulate variations in Earth's CO2 levels

Dryland ecosystems emerge as driver in in global carbon cycle

Lazy microbes are key for soil carbon and nitrogen sequetsration

Scientists discover carbonate rocks are unrecognized methane sink

Climate warming may not drive net losses of soil carbon from tropical forests

Soil in newly forested areas store substantial carbon that could offset climate change

Estimating dissolved carbon concetrations in global soils: a global database and model

Submicron structures provide preferential spots for carbon & nitrogen sequestration in soils

Carbon in plants & forests:

Watching the planet breathe

Short-circuiting the biological pumps

The Earth has lungs. Watch them breathe

Cover crops sequester soil organic carbon

Mapping blue carbon in mangroves worldwide

New forest land classification data set launched

Northern forests falter in combating climate change

Carbon-trapping 'sponges' can cut greenhouse gases

'Green revolution' changes breathing of the biosphere

Crops play a major role in the annual CO2 cycle increase

4 degree temperature rise will end vegetation 'carbon sink' 

Forest carbon stocks have been overestimated for 50 years  

What agricultural 'ecosystems on steroids' are doing to the air

Plants are a bridge that connect atmospheric carbon with soil carbon

Rivers & carbon:   

River buries permafrost carbon at sea

What role do rivers play in the carbon cycle?

'Black carbon' flowing from the soil to the oceans

Mountain streams emit a surprising amount of CO2

Mountain streams exhale more than their share of CO2 

Amazon River exhales virtually all carbon taken up by the rain forest

Ocean carbon:  

Carbon below the sea floor

Vast carbon residue of ocean life 

Fjords are 'hotspots' in global carbon cycling

Ocean food web is key to global carbon cycle

Study of carbon cycling in coastal ecosystems 

The ups and downs of the ocean's carbon sink   

Scientists solve the riddle of deep ocean carbon

Pacific stores CO2 at depths of thosands of metres 

Southern Ocean absorbs less than previously thought

Black carbon is ancient by the time it reaches seafloor

New view of how ocean 'pumps' impact climate change

Sunlight stimulates brown algae to release organic carbon

Hydrothermal vents may add ancient carbon to ocean waters

Molecuar-level relationships key to deciphering ocean carbon

Microscopic organism plays a big role in ocean carbon cycling 

As oceans warm, microbes could pump more CO2 back into air

New research helps solve the riddle of the ocean carbon conundrum

Synchrotron sheds (X-ray) light on carbon chemistry at ocean surfaces

The marine carbon system and ocean acidification during Phanerozoic Time

Largest mapping of breathing ocean floor key to understanding global carbon cycle

First direct measurements of Pacific seabed sediments reveal strong methane source

Radiocarbon constraints on the extent and evolution of the South Pacific glacial carbon pool

Long-term cycles in the carbon reservoir of the Quaternary ocean: a perspective from the South China sea

Spaceborne carbon:

Spaceborne carbon counter maps new details

Deep subsurface carbon:

Carbon in Earth 

Carbon Cycle at Depth

'Carbon sink' detected underneath world's deserts

Deep-Earth carbon offers clues about origin of life on Earth   

Most of Earth's carbon may be hidden in the planet's inner core, new model suggests

SFA2.0 project explores unchartered environmental frontier of subsurface ecogenomics

Arctic/Antartic carbon:

Sunlight, not microbes, key to CO2 in Arctic 

Artic sea ice helps remove CO2 from the atmosphere

Arctic seafloor methane releases double previous estimates

Surface water inundation in the boreal-Arctic: potential impacts on regional methane emissions

Carbon & animals:

Carbon models underestimate role of animals 

Carbon and manufactured products: 

What's the carbon footprint of my favorite product?

Shrinking the carbon footprint of a chemical in everyday oblects

Prototype for monitoring anthrpogenic CO2 emissions nears completion

The Global Oxygen & Ozone Cycle:

Scripps O2 program

O2 dropping faster than CO2 rising 

Warming oceans starved of oxygen

Tracking tropospheric ozone since 1979

Researchers descibe oxygen's different shapes

Thunderstorms helping bring ozone down to Earth    

Ozone does not necessarily promote decline of natural ecosystems

On the changing role of the stratosphere on the tropospheric ozone budget: 1979-2010

The Global Nitrogen Cycle: 

Forests lose nitrogen in surprising ways

The world's nitrogen fixation, explained

Mystery of Earth's missing nitrogen solved

Nitrogen footprints: past, presnt and future

Natural reasons behind nitrogen-rich forests 

Inventories and scenarios of nitous oxide emissions

No laughing matter, nitrous oxide rose at end of last ice age

Going against the grain - nitrogen turns out to be hypersociable

Local and social facets of planetary boundaries: right to nutrients

Study finds wide-reaching impact of nitrogen deposition on plants

30-year changes in the nitrogen inputs to the Yangtze River basin

Excess nitrogen in the US environment - trends, risks and solutions

To save the Earth, better nitrogen use on a hungrier planet must be addressed

Global nitrogen availability consistent for past 500 years, linked to carbon levels

Complex relationship between phosphorous levels and nitrogen removal in lakes

Cost of reactive nitrogen release from human activities to the environment in the USA

Nitrogen fingerprint in biomolecules and extraterrestrial objects could be from early Sun

Dissolved organic nitrogen in municipal biological nitogen removal wastewater treatment plants

Fertilizers and nitrate pollution of suface and groundwater: an increasingly pervasive global problem

First approach to the Japanese nitrogen footprint model to predict the loss of nitrogen to the environment 

Ocean nitrogen:

How much nitrogen is fixed in the ocean?

Nitrogen factories in the Cretaceous oceans

Change in Pacific nitrogen content tied to climate change

The surface of the sea is a sink for nitrogen oxides at night

Humans adding less nitrogen to oceans than models predict

A new mechanism for nitrogen cycing in the Southern Ocean

Continental microbes helped seed ancient seas with notrogen

Nitrogen inputs in the ancient ocean - underappreciated bacteria 

Ocean source of the greenhouse gas nitrogen has been underestimated

The Global Phosphorous Cycle:

Life's first taste of phosphorous

Soil determines fate of phosphorous

The Phosphorous Index: changes afoot

Total Phosphorous (TP) in European lakes

Oxygen, phosphorous and early life  on Earth

Fertilzer's legacy: taking a toll on land and water

Local and social facets of planetary boundaries: right to nutrients

Embodied phosphorous and the global connections of US agriculture

Biochemical fossil shows how life may have emerged without phosphate

After decades of clean-up attempts, world's lakes still suffer from phosphorous pollution

The Global Sulphur Cycle: 

A shortcut in the global sulphur cycle

Fool's gold found to regulate oxygen

Earth on Acid: the present and future of Global Acidification

NASA satellite sees increase of India's sulfur dioxide emissions

Dimethyl sulphide (DMS) is the little gas raising big questions for our planet

New understanding of modern climate change as implications for early Earth's evolution

The Global Iron cycle:

Combustion iron distribution and deposition

Sources, transport and deposition of iron in the global atmosphere

Atmospheric iron deposition in the northwest Pacific Ocean and its adjacent seas - important coal burning

Particle-size variability of aerosol iron, impact on iron solubility and dry deposition fluxes to the Arctic Ocean

The Global Manganese Cycle:

Morphing manganese 

Other Global Cycles:

Oceans may be large, overlooked source of hydrogen gas

How much hydrogen is consumed by ocean-floor microbes?

Atmospheric transport of trace elements and nutrients to the oceans  

Minerals from PNG hold secret for recycing of nobel gases between deep Earth and atmosphere

Processes controlling the stable isotope compositions of Li, B, Mg & Ca in plants, soils & water - a review