Estapa shares links between ocean life and future climate in DMC virtual seminar

Tue, 07/21/2020 - 7:45am

Margaret Estapa will present “Untangling the links between ocean life, the global carbon cycle, and future climate” at 10:30 a.m. Friday, July 24, as a virtual seminar, or webinar, hosted by the University of Maine Darling Marine Center in Walpole.

Estapa is currently an assistant professor of geosciences at Skidmore College located in upstate New York, and soon will be joining the UMaine faculty as an assistant rofessor of chemical oceanography in the UMaine School of Marine Sciences.

Estapa’s research has focused on oceanic biogeochemical processes in open ocean, coastal and benthic environments, with funding support from NASA, National Science Foundation and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She will be based at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, starting on Aug. 1.

Dr. Estapa’s research requires her to conduct extensive field observations at sea, often hundreds of miles from the coast, and also to validate those measurements with painstaking laboratory work that leverages cutting-edge chemistry. During the seminar the professor will examine how “the global ocean acts as a sponge for atmospheric carbon dioxide, including human emissions, and how the ocean will influence carbon uptake in the future.”

Estapa’s virtual seminar will be the second in the DMC’s three-part summer science summer series.  A presentation by DMC Director Heather Leslie on Aug. 7 will provide an additional opportunity for participants to learn about current marine science and policy topics in which UMaine researchers and students are actively engaged, in Maine and beyond.

Visit dmc.umaine.edu/science-seminar-series for a full description of the talk, to register for this webinar and for information on upcoming speakers and programs.