Posted on 06/14/2010 11:15:35 AM PDT by 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.”
Tampa Bay is already nearly destroyed by pollution, this would probably finish it off.
HEARTBREAKING!
Whales, Dolphins and Manatees have to come to the surface and breathe. Sucking in oil and Corexit, they stand no chance.
Most definitely. I just don’t see why more can’t be done to stop the oil’s flow.
FUBO
Not correct. Sunlight normally travels into the ocean and gets absorbed based on wavelength. Red light gets absorbed quickly, but the more energetic light from green to UV-A can travel fairly deep into the ocean. The oil prevents this light from traveling into the ocean. So right out of the gate, the black oil stops the more energetic light from entering the ocean. A bigtime cooling affect. Conversely, the oil is less reflective then seawater so less light gets reflected. So the oil is going to heat up and get very hot. Some of this heat will enter the water, but the oil is basically acting as a screen. It will give up radiated heat at night to the atmosphere. It will give up radiated heat during the day to the wind. What this will do is transfer heat that normally went into the ocean, back out into the atmosphere. So the atmosphere above will heat, while the water below cools. Yes the air to water interface will be affected and less heat energy (evaporation) will be radiated back into space from the water, but the water is not getting heated as much as it would have without the oil, so there will be less evaporative pressure to begin with.
Someone linked a article about drilling history in the region, and it appears that sometime this oil can be very hot. One report stated it was 130 F at very high pressure. So this oil can have stored a ton of heat energy. Now we still do not know the temperature of the oil being released from the Deepwater Horizon well. If it is 130 F, then we have a major warming problem that might be slightly mitigated by the cooling effect of surface oil slicks. It is is 40 F then we have localized cooling problems with a long term regional trend toward cooling. The temperature of the oil is a very important metric.
This is fascinating, ape, and I’m glad you spoke to it. I was calling BS on NOAA when they bumped their hurricane predictions based on this. I’m glad to hear there’s another side to the story, and your side makes much more sense to me than the simplistic: “Well, it’s black, it gets hot, which means the water’s hotter, so more hurricanes!” Besides, hurricanes form due to hot air convection off of the water bringing moisture into the upper layers of the atmosphere. If the slick is simply heating the air and no moisture is rising, then we’re just looking at higher air temperatures, not humidity.
Living in the Tampa Bay area, I can attest that it’s been very hot for this time of year. We’re already well into the 90s with heat indices up to 105-110. August is our hottest month, in general, so if we’re at this point now, I don’t want to think about August.
PS - They are also currently burning the oil and methane gas being collected from the leak. The smoke from the oil burning could also slightly cool the ocean water via particulates that block sunlight. Later.
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