Sources and Sinks | NOAA Climate.gov

Desert-rainforest transition zones are hotspots for carbon storage, but not during El Niño

August 14, 2015

Plants on land have helped slow global warming by capturing nearly a quarter of the carbon dioxide that human activities release in an average year. But where is it all going?

2014 State of the Climate: Fires

July 16, 2015

Globally, carbon emissions from fires were near the long-term average in 2014, but North America's emissions were 70% higher than average.

Climate change likely to worsen U.S. and global dead zones

February 2, 2015

Already a threat to fish, mussels, and other marine creatures, low-oxygen “dead zones” are expected to increase in both size and number as greenhouse gas concentrations and global temperatures continue to rise.

In response to warming, Eastern forests inhaling more carbon dioxide than they're exhaling

May 30, 2014

In response to recent decades' warming, forests in the eastern United States have been "inhaling" more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis than they've “exhaled” through respiration.

Atmospheric Carbon: Can We Offset the Increase?

This is a multi-step activity that helps students measure, investigate, and understand the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the utility of carbon offsets. It also enables students to understand that carbon offsets, through reforestation, are not sufficient to balance increases in atmospheric C02 concentration.

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Investigating Combustion and the Carbon Cycle

In this activity, students explore the role of combustion in the carbon cycle. They learn that carbon flows among reservoirs on Earth through processes such as respiration, photosynthesis, combustion, and decomposition, and that combustion of fossil fuels is causing an imbalance. This activity is one in a series of 9 activities.

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The Carbon Cycle interactive

This is an interactive visualization of the Carbon Cycle, through short-term and long-term processes.

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Trees and Carbon

This activity describes the flow of carbon in the environment and focuses on how much carbon is stored in trees. It goes on to have students analyze data and make calculations about the amount of carbon stored in a set of trees at three sites in a wooded area that were to be cut down to build a college dormitory.

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Blue Carbon: The Climate Mitigation Opportunity You've Never Heard Of

SOARCE webinar

April 25, 2016

This presentation will discuss the state of the science and policy of blue carbon including: (1) incorporation of coastal wetland carbon in U.S. national climate, resilience, and conservation efforts; (2) potential steps to incorporate coastal...

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The Incredible Carbon Journey

In this activity, students explore the way that human activities have changed the way that carbon is distributed in Earth's atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere.

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