Carbon budget refers to the contribution of various sources of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

 on the planet. Carbon budget has nothing to do with political

Politics of global warming

The politics of global warming have involved corporate lobbying, funding of special interest groups and public relations campaigns by the oil and coal industries which have affected policy decisions and legislation worldwide...

 agendas, climate change legislation

Individual and political action on climate change

Individual and political action on climate change can take many forms, most of which have the ultimate goal of limiting and/or reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, toward avoiding dangerous climate change.-Political action:...

, carbon controls, carbon storage

Carbon capture and storage

Carbon capture and storage , alternatively referred to as carbon capture and sequestration, is a technology to prevent large quantities of from being released into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuel in power generation and other industries. It is often regarded as a means of mitigating...

, or geopolitical carbon footprint

Carbon footprint

A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person.". However, calculating a carbon footprint which conforms to this definition is often impracticable due to the large amount of data required, which is...

.

Balancing the Carbon Budget

Carbon budget figures are normally documented by mass of carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

. Documenting carbon budget figure by mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 of carbon dioxide is limiting as sometimes the transfer of carbon from one system to another is via a compound

Chemical compound

A chemical compound is a pure chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemical elements that can be separated into simpler substances by chemical reactions. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure; they consist of a fixed ratio of atoms that are held together...

 other than carbon dioxide .

Carbon Sources (Annual)

• 80.4 Gt
  Tonne
  The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
  
  C
  Carbon
  Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
  
   by soil respiration
  Soil respiration
  Soil respiration refers to the production of carbon dioxide when soil organisms respire. This includes respiration of plant roots, the rhizosphere, microbes and fauna....
  
   and fermentation
  Fermentation (biochemistry)
  Fermentation is the process of extracting energy from the oxidation of organic compounds, such as carbohydrates, using an endogenous electron acceptor, which is usually an organic compound. In contrast, respiration is where electrons are donated to an exogenous electron acceptor, such as oxygen,...
  
   (Raich et al., 2002)
• 38 GtC and rising by 0.5 GtC per annum by cumulative photosynthesis
  Photosynthesis
  Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
  
   deficit(Casey, 2008)
• by post-clearance deflation (See Eswaran, 1993)
• 7.8 GtC (IPCC, 2007 - Needs peer reviewed reference)
• 2.3 GtC by process of deforestation
  Deforestation
  Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
  
   (IPCC
  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
  
  , 2007; Melillo et al., 1996; Haughton & Hackler, 2002)
• 0.03 GtC? by Volcanoes
• by Tectonic rifts
  Rift
  In geology, a rift or chasm is a place where the Earth's crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics....
  
  
• by Animal Respiration
  Respiration (physiology)
  'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
  
  
• by Plant Respiration
  Respiration (physiology)
  'In physiology, respiration is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction...
  
  

Carbon Sinks (Annual)

• 120 GtC by Photosynthesis (Bowes, 1991)
• By Ocean Carbonate Buffer

Cumulative Photosynthesis Deficit

Carbon pooled in photosynthesising biota

Biota (ecology)

Biota are the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period, from local geographic scales and instantaneous temporal scales all the way up to whole-planet and whole-timescale spatiotemporal scales. The biota of the Earth lives in the biosphere.-See...

 is 560 GtC (Schlesinger, 1991). Carbon released by deforestation between 1850-2000 is 156 GtC (Haughton & Hackler, 2002), reducing the total photosynthesising biomass

Biomass

Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....

to 540 GtC in 2000.

Reduction in photosynthesis between 1850-2000: 156 / (540 + 156) = ~22%

120 = (100-22=78)% of 154 GtCpa - a difference of ~34 GtCpa in 2000

Given the increase of 0.5 GtCpa over the past eight years since 2000, this figure would be closer to 38GtCpa in 2008.