NASA Oceanographer Gene Carl Feldman to Discuss “Observing the Living Oceans from Space” on Sept. 22

There is no question among scientists that the Earth is changing. Observing the oceans from space enables NASA to monitor the biological consequences of that change and determine how it affects Earth’s ability to support life.

Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, will discuss the topic in his lecture "Observing the Living Oceans from Space" at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 22, in Dining Room A, on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building,

101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The illustrated lecture, the fifth in a series of programs in 2010, is presented through a partnership between the Library’s Science, Technology and Business Division and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

According to Feldman, information collected from satellites provides an accurate assessment of the role of the ocean in global change, and it provides a key parameter in a number of ecological and environmental studies. Also, color images of the Earth’s changing land and ocean features are of significant use in fisheries management, agriculture assessment and coastal monitoring.

Feldman has been an oceanographer at Goddard since 1985 and has been involved with the production, archiving and distribution of satellite-derived ocean color-data sets.

Feldman served 3.5 years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa, where he was involved in fish farming, sea-turtle conservation, boat building and village fisheries development. After the Peace Corps, he worked as a fisheries biologist in Seattle, Alaska and San Diego. He then earned a Ph.D. in coastal oceanography from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The author and co-author of numerous publications, Feldman has also contributed to a large number of programs by the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Society, the Cousteau Society, the Smithsonian and many more.

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