As the World Breathes:
The Carbon Dioxide Cycle
Name: _______________________
Period: ______________
1. Why does the small amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere seem
unusual?
2. Mars and Venus do not have carbon cycles but each has carbon in a different place.
Explain.
3. Explain the greenhouse effect. (How does it work?)
4. Without the greenhouse effect, 3 billion years ago the ocean would have been frozen.
Why?
5. If there were no carbon dioxide at all in the atmosphere what would happen to global
temperatures?
6. Exactly where on Earth dud the first life forms exist? Why were they confined to
that location?
7. How did the atmosphere change after photosynthesis was invented and how did that
affect rocks?
8. When did our atmosphere become oxygen rich?
9. Before the Industrial Revolution, CO2 levels were ________________________,
today they are __________________________, and during the Age of Dinosaurs
they were ___________________________. During the Age of Dinosaurs global
temperatures were ___________________________.
10. Draw the geochemical carbon cycle and then draw the organic carbon cycle. Make
the drawing realistic (show geological features and organisms. Label all processes.
Include: photosynthesis, respiration, evaporation, dissolving, subduction, volcanic
eruption, boiling, etc.