THE IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY ON THE GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE

In the pre industrial period, the carbon cycle was just a carbon flux among the atmosphere, ocean and terrestrial ecosystem. The exchange between carbon pools had been kept in a kinetic equilibrium. Since the industrial period, human activity has been a critical disturbing force to the global carbon cycle. The carbon stored in the geological carbon pool has been a part of short term carbon cycle because of the use of fossil fuel. The increase of CO 2 by land use, such as forest and pasture reclamation, has aggravated the burden of atmosphere. However, afforestation and reforestation became sink of CO 2. The feedback of climate change resulted from increasing CO 2 in the atmosphere influences the carbon cycle. Many scientists thought that the terrestrial ecosystem might absorb more carbon than estimated at present. But the terrestrial ecosystem merely played a role of buffer. CO 2 emitted by human activity will only go to the ocean ultimately. While the ocean assimilate regular carbon annually, it was pointed out that the human activity should be restrained to balance the global carbon cycle.