Comments on: The BP Oil Spill isn’t really that bad, is it?

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 21:23:17 +0000

the dramatic sst image from Jan 28, 2015 Borked — arrg

http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/regions/gulfmexico/sst/noaa/2015/img/150128.028.1039.n18.jpg

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 18:00:01 +0000

disambiguation:
Of course, by ‘bioturbation’ I mean to say a missing mechanism of mixing of the water column itself — not the floor sediment.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 17:48:26 +0000

http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/sat_data/show/?file=../../regions/gulfmexico/sst/noaa/2015/img/150128.028.2156.n18.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill_-_May_24,_2010_-_with_locator.jpg

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/files/2015/01/NOAA_SST_anomwnc-610×457.gif

^^ Coincidence?

Roy Spencer mentioning impeded evaporation:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/06/evidence-of-elevated-sea-surface-temperatures-under-the-bp-oil-slick/

I’m *assuming* there is not still/renued sheen there — If I were writing a scifi techno-mystery and doomsday scenario then ‘the anomoly may be due to altered (lack of/dead) bioturbation by microscopic marine organisms’ might tickle the keyboard.
——————————

Booming School 101:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w

By: Lyle

Lyle — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:56:33 +0000

Agreed something will recover, something recovered after the permo-Triassic extinction (90% of marine and 70% of land species extinct) and the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. Likely what we have done is to set in motion a major extinction event over a couple of hundred years as the earth decides to remove the virus (homo sapiens) that is infecting it. Note that I am taking a geological point of view species come and go in the geologic record, that is nature for us. For a human life span its a big problem but the earth will do away with our works over mostly 500 to 1000 years as life after people suggests, with a few lasting longer such as Mt Rushmore and the like.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:23:53 +0000

Thanks, Jared. Looking forward to finding out what you discover.

By: Jared

Jared — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:50:17 +0000

I drove down to the southern part of the state yesterday. I went to place some rainwater collection equipment. Barataria Bay is pretty fucked. I didn’t see any oil in the lake (Pontchartrain), although the smell of gasoline was noticed occasionally.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:55:53 +0000

Is anyone still saying the Gulf Gusher is not that bad? (Calling it a spill comes under that heading, IMO.)

OK, that’s a stupid question. Someone will always try to minimize the problem, especially if they caused it.

More to the point, they’ll always try to maximize the uproar from the other side, which they regard as baseless, the better to make their opponents look bad.

Both sides make dire predictions. Environmentalists predict extreme pollution; corporatists predict extreme poverty. It seems to me that the environmentalists have a much better claim to accuracy.

By: Rose Colored Glasses

Rose Colored Glasses — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:01:07 +0000

The oil you see is only the fraction more buoyant than seawater. We don’t know what fraction that is of the total because BP won’t allow scientists to measure anything.

Obama, as commander-in-chief, could bring BP’s heavy-handedness to an abrupt halt by sending a few USN frigates to put shots across their bows, causing BP to have a sudden attack of common courtesy.

By: daedalus2u

daedalus2u — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:36:47 +0000

I agree with stripey, 500 years is too short a time. 100 year old secondary forest is not “the same” as virgin forest.

It is the loss of genetic diversity in species that is irreversible. In the limit this is what extinction is, a complete loss of genetic diversity.

More important than protecting beaches from visible oil is protecting wild life habitat from oil that differentially affects species and species diversity. Once that genetic diversity is gone, it takes a very long time to come back.

By: stripey_cat

stripey_cat — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:03:29 +0000

Lyle – *Something* will recover, but it won’t be the same as without human intervention. Extinct species will stay extinct, eroded topsoil will be gone, dead coral reefs will still be dead stone, new forests will have a different balance of species. Also, plenty of forms of pollution will still be there: heavy-metal poisoned soils on industrial sites; landfills; plastics; large areas still covered with broken building rubble. And it’ll take another Carboniferous to deal with the atmospheric CO2 (OK, that’s hyperbole, but I’d be surprised if it was all back in limestone deposits and buried organic layers in a mere 500 years).