Computational studies of molecular interactions involving carbon dioxide and carbonic acid

Abstract

Nature has her own way of maintaining balance. Carbon cycle is one of such fine balances that maintains total carbon content of the earth by distributing it among the land, oceans and the atmosphere. About two-thirds of the total carbon on earth is permanently stored in fossil fuels, limestone rocks and sediments under the earth. Such reserves of carbon are a result of storage over millions of years, of carbon which was initially present in the atmosphere. Most of the remaining one-third carbon is in relatively long-term storage in the ocean and the earth surface. The forms of carbon in the ocean include dissolved carbon dioxide gas, as carbonates in seashells or in the organic tissues of marine animals.