[rarestia]

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.

[justa-hairyape]

The water evaporation part actually might be a bit complex. What is basically going to happen is a lot of solar energy will be concentrated within the oil surface slick. Less solar energy gets through the oil. So now the oil gets heated and radiates upward into the air and downward into the water. Any water molecules that can get above the slick could be super heated by the oil and will evaporate quickly. But overall the oil should limit evaporation. Think everyone agrees with that. There should definitely be a rise in air temp as oil radiates the concentrated solar energy back into the atmosphere. A significant portion of that radiated heat would have gone down deeper into the ocean if the oil was not present. So basically an ocean with an oil slick will behave slightly more like land with concern to solar radiation.

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.