NOAA: “Oil plume located off Florida’s SW coast and heading toward the Tortugas”, FL Keys

University of Miami ^ | June 14, 2010 | jackie

[jackietree]

SNIP

“As we approached, we found an extensive oil slick that stretched about 20 nm (20 miles) along the southward flowing jet which merged with the northern front of the Loop Current. ...

SNIP

“The combination of models and satellite images, along with our shipboard observations and ROFFS daily analysis had helped us to identify and study this previously unidentified oil plume located off Florida’s southwest coast and heading toward the Tortugas.”

[himno hero]

Someone should be out there pumping out these lakes and attempting to recover some of the oil.

That president is long overdue to do anything. He is just letting it happen and while pointing fingers at everyone else.

To him? Its really a part and parcel of his nefarious muslim agenda of destruction of the US of A.

If he was an American with love of nation he would have been off his can long ago!

[ilovesarah2012]

Makes me angry, too. I grew up in So. Fla. and it seems nobody can do anything about this disaster.

[thethirddegree]

Jail is too good for this pos in the WH.

[Terry Mross]

I thought a “slick” and a “plume” were two different things. In fact, can a plume even be seen with the naked eye?

[dmz]

But, but, I’ve been told by several freepers that this is not that big a deal, it is overblown, the gulf will not die, nature will heal itself, bla, bla, bla...

<><><><>

Chuckling ... read some of those comments early on in the spill. Haven’t seen much of it since.

[VictoryGal]

:-( Dammit, DAMMIT.

[VictoryGal]

It was ignorant. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Rush claiming it would clean itself.

[valkyry1]

To your last sentence, but he is not!!

[valkyry1]

Yes I got pilloried and ridiculed from day one, but I was way ahead of them on this one.

[Vaquero]

Bush and Cheney would have had this fixed a month ago....

.....Period.

[KDD]

You can only get there by boat or seaplane. I used to work the flats 50 miles west of there for Mutton Snapper. First went there in 1978 to get out of the way of a storm. Fishing Boats, Yachts, trawlers were all anchored in the harbor at the fort. What a party..

In the next 25 years I probably put in there 50 or 60 times..for family(working)vacations, shelter from storms...and sometimes just to give the crew a break from a 14 day, 18 hour a day job. I've snorkled the shallow reefs and dove on the deeper ones. As the fort became more well known a ferry was started from Key West...sometime in the mid to late 80’s I think. Even though taking coral was illegal,,,by the mid 90’s most of the coral trees(especially the purple ones)had disappeared. Other then the die off from the sugar plant runoff from the Glades the reef was in fair shape.

This is the largest living coral reef in North America. It is every bit a National Monument.

[mojitojoe]

The only living coral reefs in the United States? Millions visit them each year from all over the world? A national marine sanctuary? Decimation of the Florida lobster industry? Decimation of the sponge bed in the GOM and the Caribbean? This is the month that many crustaceans, and fish spawn. Their eggs float to the top. The coral spawn is during the full moon in August and September. Stone crabs spawn during the spring and summer.Bastards! The only good thing is that the longer it isn't in the Keys and southern GOM, the better the chance for the newly hatched to survive.

[mojitojoe]

Like this poor Dolphin that beached itself in agony and died?

[jersey117]

Even as this spreads, the media still covers for him. Tomorrow night he goes prime time and lies to bump up his polls. That’s his MO.

[SueRae]

I’m sickened to see this. But the people who live on those small Caribbean islands that depend on fish to survive and catastrophic doesn’t even begin to describe it.

[Las Vegas Ron]

Just damn!

[Brugmansian]

Jeff Master's take on May 31st:

I expect that during the peak portion of hurricane season (August - October), the clockwise-rotating eddy that is attempting to cut off from the Loop Current this week will be fully separated from the Loop Current.

The separation of this eddy will substantially reduce the possibility that significant amounts of oil will reach the Florida Keys and Southeast U.S. coast, since the Loop Current will be much farther south, flowing more due east towards the Keys from the Yucatan Channel.

Oil moving southwards from the spill location due to a hurricane's winds will tend to get trapped in the 250-mile wide eddy, potentially covering most of the surface of the eddy with oil. Thus we might have a 250-mile wide spinning oil slick in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico for days or weeks after a hurricane.

This could potentially have a significant warming effect on the Gulf waters, since the oil is dark and will absorb sunlight, and the oil will prevent evaporation from cooling the waters underneath it. Since Loop Current eddies contain a large amount of very warm water that extend to great depth, they often act as high-octane fuel for hurricanes that pass over. The rapid intensification of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were both aided by the passage of those storms over Loop Current eddies. Thus the warming of the Loop Current Eddy by oil pulled into it by a passing hurricane or tropical storm could lead to explosive intensification of the next hurricane that passes over the eddy.

The Loop Current Eddy will move slowly westwards toward Texas at about 4 miles per day after it fully cuts off. When it reaches the shallow waters near the Texas coast in early 2011, the eddy will turn northwards and gradually dissipate . . .

full text

[JulieRNR21]

Joe: Please PING FL FReepers.
THX, Julie

[numberonepal]

Now there’s some not so good news. The fallout is like the layers of an onion.

[mojitojoe]

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