Which of the following is the longest-lived reservoir for carbon? a. atmospheric CO2 b. marine plankton (primary producers and consumers) c. fossil fuels d. wood

Video transcript

Welcome back. Here's our next question. It says the two most important and largest natural carbon sinks include blank and blank. Well we can recall from our content videos that carbon sinks is anything and it can be natural or not natural doesn't matter that accumulates and stores some carbon containing chemical compound for an indeterminant period of time. And this essentially has the result of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now if we think about removing C. 02 from the atmosphere, the most important process for doing this is photosynthesis which of course consumes C. 02. And where does the most photosynthesis go on in earth? Well in forests by the plants of the forest and in oceans due to photosynthetic plankton. So when we look at our answer choices, we see that choice D. Is oceans and forests. So that would be our answer. Um Choice A. Is fossil fuels and oceans. Well fossil fuels aren't continuously um accumulating that carbon and storing it away. So in fact fossil fuels are a source of releasing carbon as we consume them. So choice saying our answer choice B. Says oceans and rocks um rocks are not carbon sinks in the way that photo synthesizing plants are enjoy C. Says atmosphere and fossil fuels. Um Again fossil fuels not a carbon sink but the opposite a source of carbon. The atmosphere contains carbon in it. It's not removing carbon from itself. Obviously. So again two most important and largest natural carbon sinks include choice D. Oceans and forests. In the next video