Carbon cycle biological pump

Inputs of agricultural fertilizers are having more than one impact on the biological pump. A shift in the NO PO4 Si(OH)4 of natural waters is causing a shift in the phytoplankton community structure that should impact the biological cycling of carbon in aquatic systems (Conley et al, 1993). Additionally, a recent shift in the C N P ratios of deeper waters and an increase in export production have been observed for the northern hemisphere oceans (Pahlow and Riebesell, 2000). 

The carbon cycle is typically broken down into two components, both of which will be summarized here. The first is the biological pump, effecting the redistributing of biologically active elements like carbon, nitrogen, and silicon within the circulating waters of the ocean. The second is the ultimate removal of these elements by burial in sediments. These two components of the carbon cycle together control the mean concentrations of... 

The place of the biological pump in the global carbon cycle is illustrated in Figure 2. The atmosphere exchanges carbon with essentially three reservoirs the ocean, the terrestrial biosphere, and the geosphere. The ocean holds —50 times as much carbon as does the atmosphere, and... 

The dynamics of marine organic carbon can be described as a set of three nested cycles in which the biological pump is the cycle with flux and reservoir of intermediate magnitude (Figure 3). The cycle with the shortest timescale, which operates within the surface ocean, is composed of net primary production by phytoplankton... 

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