What are the TWO largest sinks(sorage areas) for carbon?-And how do these sinks hold the carbon?
By far and away the largest carbon STORE are the oceans, these contain a little over 39 trillion tons of carbon. Soils are the second largest carbon stores holding just over 1.5 trillion tons. Stores are different to sinks. A carbon store is as the name implies – somewhere that carbon is stored. A carbon sink is the name given to a source that absorbs more carbon than it releases, in other words, it reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmopshere. The oceans are the largest carbon SINKS and biomass (vegetation) comes second. Each year the oceans release 88 billion tons of CO2 and absorb 90 billion tons – they are a sink for 2 billion tons of CO2. Biomass releases 119 billion tons of CO2 each year and absorbs 120 billion tons – it’s a sink for 1 billion tons of CO2. Within the oceans, CO2 is absorbed through the process of diffusion and in biomass it’s absorbed through photosynthesis.
