Ecosystem through this process supports life on earth, while the carbon makes up much of the organic matter in living and dead biomass, soil carbon and fossil fuels. It also drives the carbon cycle, which influences global climate via the greenhouse effect. Through the process of photosynthesis, plants capture energy from light and use it to combine carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. The photosynthesis carried out by all the plants in an ecosystem is called the gross primary production (GPP). About half of the GPP is consumed in plant respiration. The remainder, that portion of GPP that
Carbon dioxide and microbial fermentation. In 1772, English chemist Joseph Priestley published a paper entitled "Impregnating Water with Fixed Air" in which he described a process of dripping sulfuric acid (or "oil of vitriol" as Priestley knew it) on chalk in order to produce carbon dioxide, and forcing the gas to dissolve by agitating a bowl of water in contact with the gas. Carbon dioxide was first liquefied (at elevated pressures) in 1823 by Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday. The earliest description of solid carbon dioxide was given by Adrien-Jean-Pierre Thilorier, who in 1835 opened a pressurized container of liquid carbon dioxide,