Industrialization and changes in the landscape have disturbed natural geochemical cycles of carbon and other elements significantly for several centuries. Fossil fuel emissions are the main contributor, along with deforestation and cement production. Projection of future trends in atmospheric CO2 and global carbon flows, under human disturbance, requires understanding of the natural exchanges between atmosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and geosphere pools. Regulation of the rates of flux in the global carbon cycle occurs in enumerable biogeochemical processes, but overall through major feedbacks in the biogeochemical cycle of carbon through weathering, photosynthetic fixation, respiratory metabolism, and the ocean calcium carbonate buffering system. Mathematical computer models have become the means by which the complex, biogeochemical processes of atmosphere, land, and oceans can be represented, quantified, and used to describe the past, present, and future dynamics of the Earth's carbon cycle.
Elsevier, David E. Reichle, Chapter 10 - The global carbon cycle and the biosphere, Editor(s): David E. Reichle, The Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change (Second Edition), Elsevier, 2023, Pages 235-283, ISBN 9780443187759, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-18775-9.00014-0.
