The water evaporates from the ocean; it rains and the water forms into streams; the steams flow into rivers; the rivers flow into the ocean. We all know this cycle, but do we know this is a part of the carbon cycle? You see, this water carries huge amounts of organic compounds. The water carries to the oceans huge amounts of carbon compounds. In fact, the oceans contain around 36,000 Giga-tons of carbon. This carbon exchange becomes important in controlling the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is because the world’s oceans support most of the world’s photosynthesis. The oceans also sequester huge amounts of carbon dioxide by turning it into calcium carbonate which precipitates into the ocean’s sediment.

There is no denial that the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is increasing. It’s quite likely that the high carbon dioxides level causes global warming. It’s very likely that human activity is responsible for this increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

It is obvious that the burning of fossil fuel increases the level of carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere, but the level of carbon 14 in the atmosphere implies the burning of fossil fuel is not sole cause of these increase levels.  The amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere is higher than it should be if the burning of fossil fuel is the sole effect of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, when working to reduce or stop “global warming” we should not just concentrate on the burning of fossil fuel, we should also look to improve the health of the oceans.  We must step back and look at the ecology as a whole to fight global warming.