CleanBeta

Measuring the World’s Metabolism

Global Carbon Sinks Organized by Intensity - Yellow, Red, Blue, Purple

All living organisms contain carbon. Organisms that absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they emit are called “carbon sinks.” Those that emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb are called “carbon sources.”

Rainforests and oceans are the world’s most prodigious carbon sinks and absorb half the carbon dioxide humans release into the atmosphere. When plants or marine organisms die, the carbon they store is removed from the atmosphere, often for millions of years.

These picture shows the Earth’s carbon “metabolism”—the rate at which plants absorbed carbon out of the atmosphere during the years 2001 and 2002. Each map shows the global, annual average of the net productivity of vegetation on land and in the ocean.

• Yellow and Red indicate the highest and higher carbon absorption rates respectively (ranging from 2 to 3 kilograms of carbon consumed per square kilometer annually)
  

• Green areas reflect intermediate rates of carbon absorption
  

• Blue and Purple indicate low and lower carbon absorption, respectively

Although tropical rainforests are the chief carbon sinks on Earth, ocean organisms still absorb roughly the same amount makes the ocean roughly as productive as the land. Unfortunately, climate change is reducing ocean life and as such lessening the impact oceans have on the global carbon cycle.