SCOPE 13 - The Global Carbon Cycle

Foreword

SCOPE's Project on Biogeochemical Cycles is concerned with the complex and dynamic network of flows of matter, in ever-changing form, between the various compartments of the global environment. Achieving some degree of practically useful comprehension requires not only a thorough examination of the chemical, physical and biological phenomena that are involved in the mechanisms of transport, transformation and regulation, but also a painstaking, quantitative assessment of flows and pools, followed by repeated and more and more refined modelling. While a holistic approach to such studies is obviously mandatory, it is nevertheless a matter of pragmatic wisdom to divide the problem area at least temporarily into several fragments, each less formidable than the presently unmanageable whole. SCOPE has chosen to do this by subdividing its project into the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur and studies are now under way on all of these cycles.    

SCOPE Report 7, published in 1976, presents the initial critical survey on the nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur cycles, which has triggered further SCOPE project activities, carried out in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The present publication is the result of the Workshop on the Carbon Cycle, held at Ratzeburg, Federal Republic of Germany, 2126 March 1977. The carbon cycle is the most important and most complex cycle of all, as it is the pacemaker for the other cycles which in turn codetermine flow rates in the carbon cycle.

Although, at the moment, the carbon cycle attracts a great deal of attention because of its interaction with world climate, SCOPE takes the view that all of its aspects require urgent attention because we simply cannot afford to have only fragmentary knowledge of the basic mechanism of the production of the globe's renewable resources.

Hence SCOPE's carbon cycle project follows a broad, comprehensive approach, and the present publication is no more and no less than the first indispensable step of taking stock of what has been done and what has to be done. As was the case for the other cycles, SCOPE intends to continue the work on the carbon cycle, which should ultimately converge in an understanding of the ensemble of networks constituted by the sum total of the biogeochemical cycles.

SCOPE is greatly indebted to UNEP, the German Research Council, Hamburg University, Shell and the National SCOPE Committees of the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, who all provided support for preparing and holding the Ratzeburg meeting. In the person of Prof. Dr. Egon T. Degens, SCOPE thanks all those who have cooperated enthusiastically under his stimulating guidance in the production of this report.