Presenting Katherine Richardson and Marta Victoria as our speakers for the November edition of the CORC CO₂ Research Talks

The third research talks will take place on 16 November 2022, and we are proud and honored to present Katherine Richardson as our external speaker, and Marta Victoria as our CORC-internal speaker.

Katherine Richardson: The ocean as a CO₂ sink

Katherine Richardson is a Professor in Biological Oceanography at the University of Copenhagen and the Leader of the University's Sustainability Science Centre. She is also a member of the Danish Council on Climate Change. In her research, she focuses on a better understanding of the role of biological processes and biodiversity on the cycling of carbon in the upper ocean and how this impacts food webs and the global carbon cycle. Most of her research has been on marine plankton (primarily phytoplankton). However, she has also studied higher trophic levels such as fish (both larvae and adults) and harbour purpoises. She is a co-PI in The Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (center leader Carsten Rahbek) supported by the Danish National Research Foundation, where she leads the theme on macroecology and oceanography.

In her talk she will  focus on what we know (and don’t know!) about the biological processes influencing CO₂ concentration in the surface ocean and how climate change may be impacting these processes.On time scales of 10s-100s of thousand years, changes in CO₂ exchange between the ocean and atmosphere are critical for determining climate state. It is interactions between physical, chemical and biological processes, that determine whether the ocean is a sink or a source of CO₂ in relation to the atmosphere. As long as we continue to increase CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, the ocean will act as a CO₂ sink but what will happen when atmospheric CO2 concentration stabilizes or even begin to decline? If CO₂ concentration in the surface ocean is higher than in the atmosphere, CO₂ will outgas from the ocean to the atmosphere.

Marta Victoria: Pathways to clilmate neutrality

Marta Victoria is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering at Aarhus University. Her research focuses on the modelling of large-scale energy systems with high renewable penetration paying special attention to the role of solar photovoltaics. Within CORC, systems modeling of energy systems is an effective tool for gaining concrete knowledge about potential strategies that can be used to reduce CO₂ emissions, as well as how different technologies can be combined. 

Europe’s contribution to global warming will be determined by the cumulative emissions until climate neutrality is achieved. In a recent paper, Marta and her group have investigated alternative transition paths for Europe under different carbon budgets. In the talk, the similarities and differences among the alternative paths will be discussed. Marta will focus on the timing of the scale-up of technologies required for capturing and converting CO₂, the system cost, and the required CO₂ price.

Read more about the CORC CO₂ Research talks series and see more upcoming talks here.