•Atmosphere: Carbon is attached to some oxygen in a gas called carbon dioxide. When plants and animals respire, glucose stored in the plants and animals are broken down to release CO2, water and energy. Through this process, CO2 is released back into the atmosphere.
•Plants: They use carbon dioxide and sunlight to make their own food and grow.
•Animals: The carbon absorbed by plants is transferred to animals through feeding. As smaller animals get eaten by bigger animals, this carbon is moved up the food chain.
•Decay organisms: As plants and animals die and decay or decompose, the carbon is released to the environment. When the decaying matter bodies get buried under the ground and are subjected to high pressures and other physical and chemical changes for millions of years, they change into fossil fuels.
•Fossil fuels: Are plants that die and are buried may turn into it that are made of carbon like coal and oil over millions of years. When it gets burn fossil fuels, most of the carbon quickly enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
•Ocean uptake: The oceans, and other water bodies, soak up about a quarter of the carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere. This uptake process is slow. Similarly, under normal conditions, the release of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere from the ocean is also at a very low rate.
•Carbon dioxide: Is a greenhouse gas and traps heat in the atmosphere. Without it and other greenhouse gases, Earth would be a frozen world.
All living things are made of carbon. Carbon cycle is the constant flow of carbon between the air, land, sea, even rocks and living things. Because the Earth is a dynamic place, carbon does not stay still. It is on the move! Carbon cycle plays a significant balancing role in maintaining appropriate levels of carbon in the earth's atmosphere, where is sufficient level of greenhouse effect to keep the Earth warm and suitable for life, and yet not too heat from the sun becomes trapped by the carbon dioxide in the air that leads to global warming (see definition for global warming). There is about 30% more carbon dioxide in the air today than there was about 150 years ago, and Earth is becoming a warmer place. In fact, ice cores show us that there is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has been in the last 420,000 years.