MIDDLETOWN and WARRENTON, Va. - Lord Fairfax Community College's (LFCC) Scientific Society is presenting a lecture by Scott L. Wing, a research curator with the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. The lecture, "Global Warming 55 Million Years Ago and Implications for Today," will be held on Friday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Science and Health Professions Building, Room 145, located at the Middletown Campus, 173 Skirmisher Lane in Middletown. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In his lecture, Wing will describe an episode of global warming that took place 55 million years ago, during which thousands of gigatons of carbon were released into the atmosphere and global temperatures rose 4 to 8 degrees Celsius over about 10,000 years. Over the next 150,000 years, the carbon was removed from the ocean-atmosphere system and the climate returned to its previous state. Wing will discuss possible causes for this event, its effects on plant life and the implications for future climate change.

Wing has worked for the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution since 1984. Prior to that, he worked for the U.S. Geological Survey. Wing holds a doctoral degree from Yale University.

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Founded in 1970, Lord Fairfax Community College is a comprehensive, multi-campus public institution of higher education. Through its three locations — the Fauquier and Middletown Campuses and the Luray-Page County Center — the College serves eight localities in the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont regions.  The localities are the counties of Clarke, Fauquier, Frederick, Page, Rappahannock, Shenandoah and Warren and the city of Winchester. LFCC offers more than 75 associate degree and certificate programs in a wide variety of disciplines, in addition to providing access to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs offered on site by a four-year institution. LFCC also serves the business community by offering workforce preparation programs for employees and employers. LFCC serves more than 7,600 unduplicated credit students and more than 9,620 individuals in professional development and business and industry courses annually.

Lord Fairfax Community College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associate degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Lord Fairfax Community College. LFCC does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, political affiliation or disability in its programs or activities.

For more information, media professionals may contact Kalie Kelch at 540-303-7599 or kkelch@lfcc.edu or Shari Laraway at 540-868-4080 or slaraway@lfcc.edu.