Oil Spill as of May 20th, 2010
Good Morning,
Welcome to the new Oil Spill blog where I will post the latest model imagery and the thinking behind the projections provided by the solutions. This will be updated Monday through Friday (and on weekends when the oil gets closer to Florida’s east coast)
It is Thursday, May 20th and here is the latest…
Now…the image below is just one model solution/projection for where the oil will be on Saturday night.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (in black) trajectory hindcast/forecast
based on RTOFS (Atlantic)
This the latest imagery with regards to the oil spill. Of note, not all images are within 24 hours, as cloud cover prevents daily updates for satellite imagery for one and location of specific satellites is another problem with tracking this spill with just visible images.
As this blog develops, I will post Radar imagery used by the Coast Guard and affiliates.
This is from May 19th, 2010…
This image from May 18th, 2010
Where this is in the Gulf…
The oil and its direction have the loop current in play on the southern side of the spill
Loop current right now..
Here is a look at the model projections out to Satuday, May 22nd. Click on the link to see the animation yourself.
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Eric Wilson with his son AIdan
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While watching the latest news about the BP Oil spill, a frightening thought came to mind: what if we can’t stop the oil? I mean, what happens if after all the measures to cap the pipe fail, (i.e., “Top Hat”, “Small Hat” and “Top Kill”). What then? An accident this problematic is new territory for BP. The oil pipeline is nearly a mile down on the ocean floor, accessible only by robots. Add on top of that the extreme pressure at which the oil is flowing out of the pipeline and there you have it: the perfect storm.
Moreover, scientists also claim that they’ve found an enormous plume of oil floating just under the surface of the ocean measuring approximately 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. (I’m no math genius, but I bet one of you reading this could figure out just how many barrels of oil that is…)
There are new estimates that the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico is anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day: that’s a far cry from BP’s estimated 5,000 barrels a day. If BP’s estimates are correct, the total amount of oil now in the Gulf would be approximately 150,000 barrels (or 6,300,000 gallons). That’s barely enough to fill 286 swimming pools: sixteen feet, by thirty-two feet, by eight and a half feet deep. That wouldn’t cover an area the size of New York City, let alone an area the size of Delaware. Obviously, the spill is much larger than we are being led to believe. If the leak can’t be stopped, in a year’s time, we’ll have roughly 18,250,000 barrels of oil (or 766,500,000 gallons) in our oceans, killing our marine and animal wildlife. Such a calamity would be environmentally and economically disastrous. I’m not a religious man, but I pray that BP and our government work fast to end this catastrophe.
http://www.calculateme.com/Volume/Barrels(Petroleum)/ToGallons.htm
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/05/17/latest-news-from-the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-is-grim/
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2010/05/20/scientist-says-oil-spill-is-leaking-100000-barrels-of-oil-a-day-not-bps-estimate-of-5000/