The Unseen Disaster (commentary on subsurface Gulf oil plumes by Texas A&M marine scientist)

[jpak]

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/the-unseen-disaster-770857.html?srcTrk=RTR_95649

While much attention has focused on the pictures of oiled birds, marshes and beaches, the media is showing only the tip of the iceberg of the ecological disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. What is the condition of the ocean itself? The likely answer is: not good.

Scientists at sea and sampling the ocean on the scene of the oil well blowout are reporting plumes of oil throughout the water column for tens of miles from the blowout site. Dead organisms are covering the surface near the blowout. A dead sperm whale has been found far from shore.

To make matters worse, the area of the blowout and oil slick is the most productive part of the Gulf. This is because nutrients from the Mississippi River promote algal growth, which is at the base of the food chain. This plankton falls to the bottom, creating the richest shrimping and fishing grounds in the Gulf.

There are two problems caused by the spill. Not only are these organisms being killed, but the breakdown of the oil by bacteria consumes oxygen. That will further increase the size of the dead zone — a low-oxygen area devoid of sea life that has existed for years — off Louisiana this summer.

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[AndyA]

1. If the media really reported what was going on in the Gulf,

the whole truth, people would be furious. What we have now is mere anger compared to what would be going on if everyone knew how severe and long-lasting this impact on the Gulf is going to be. This isn't something that we'll recover from in a year or two, or even five or six. This is long term.

If the whole truth were known, NO ONE would dare speak up on behalf of BP. NO ONE. To do so would be instantaneous career suicide.

[rzemanfl]

2. The fury would soon be followed by despondency and mass

migration. I fear this is coming anyway-we certainly aren't making any long-term plans.

[Nihil]

3. "people would be furious"?

> If the media really reported what was going on in the Gulf,
> the whole truth, people would be furious. What we have now is mere anger compared
> to what would be going on if everyone knew how severe and long-lasting this
> impact on the Gulf is going to be. This isn't something that we'll recover from
> in a year or two, or even five or six. This is long term.

They would be as "furious" as their media puppet-masters wanted them to be
but would then turn, moth-like, to the next flame placed in front of them.

Their "mere anger" isn't real enough to penetrate their gluttonous over-consuming
lifestyles and there is little danger that the puppet-masters will allow any risk
to the status quo on that point.


> If the whole truth were known, NO ONE would dare speak up on behalf of BP.
> NO ONE. To do so would be instantaneous career suicide.

You underestimate the duplicity & silver-tongued skills of your politicians,
your governors, your senators, your congressmen and all of their attendant
brown-nosers, lobbyists and other "staff".

You also overestimate the intelligence & empathy of your fellow citizens.

Even when you had pictures of oil-soaked pelicans circulating, the politicians
were trying to get exceptions to the drilling moratorium and, though you
might not like to admit it, they were getting a lot of support from precisely
those short-sighted self-centred morons that you think would somehow develop
a conscience.

> If the media really reported what was going on in the Gulf,
> the whole truth, people would be furious.

No. If they really reported what was going on, most of the people wouldn't
understand as it is beyond their comprehension, some of the people would be
briefly ashamed as the truth of their involvement sinks in and some would
just carry on as before - more concerned with turning a short-term profit
than with any impact on anything outside the bottom line.

[phantom power]

4. k+r

We have fucked the GOM food chain.

[phantom power]

5. Any thoughts on how far the plankton might get on ocean currents?

Seems like where ever they go, whatever toxins they ingested could get concentrated up the food chain.

[jpak]

6. they are in Delaware right now

:evilgrin:

(sorry couldn't resist)

:hi:

There is a potential for contaminated surface water to enter the North Atlantic via the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream..

Coastal zones north of Cape Hatteras could potentially receive oil-contaminated surface waters from mesoscale warm-core eddies shed off the Gulf Stream and advected toward the coast (where they would dissipate and the weathered oil pushed ashore by winds) -

There's a lot of "ifs" for that to happen and a low probability that this stuff would get into the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, Long Island Sound and the Gulf of Maine etc.

The real nastiness is happening in the subsurface plumes... The Loop Current sheds mesoscale surface eddies. These generate deep eddies that will transport the deep plumes westward and southward in the Gulf of Mexico.

Know one knows the details of these processes, but there is a call for proposals to deploy deep drifting buoys that would track the plumes as the move around the Gulf....