BP Gulf Stream Effects
By: Josh Nemec
2/14/2011
As many of you know over 2010 BP (British Petroleum) had a major oil spill in the Gulf that affect many coastal regions with oil on the beaches, shutting down marine fisheries and disrupting people’s lives. The true impacts of the oil spill are still not known and how it’s going to have an effect on the ecosystem in the long run. There has been a lot of talk on how the oil is going to affect the mangroves along the coast or the fishing community, but there has been little talk about the circulation of ocean currents.
Ocean currents are a continuous movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon it. Forces include things such as temperature, Coriolis Effect, salinity and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the moon. Ocean currents can flow great distances and together they create a global conveyor belt which plays a dominant part in climate throughout many of Earth’s regions. One of the most striking examples is the Gulf Stream, which is a major factor in northwest Europe causing more temperate conditions than other regions at the same latitude.
But what does this have to do with the oil spill? Satellite images show that the heat transfer of the Gulf Stream is slowed and breaking apart before reaching the coast of Europe. Scientists are speculating that the bounder layer of warm and cold water is mixing because of the oil particulates in the ocean. A simple experiment with a plexiglass tub of cold water with a stream of warm water that is colored so you can see it scientists can study the bounder layer of the two water temperatures. If you add oil to that mix, what the oil does to the warm water stream in a cold water body of water it breaks the bounder layer down in doing so it basically kills the velocity of the warm stream.
Now the Gulf Stream is supposed to get all the way to Ireland and it isn’t getting there. The temperature in Europe was cooler for the early winter months. Russia seen its first snows two weeks early, Norway has had 1-2 feet of snow at the end of August which is unusual, the Alps have seen its first snows a month early. In the southern hemisphere Antarctica has been unusually cool, southern Australia has seen its coldest winter for 35 years and the sea ice in the Antarctic is close to recorded levels. This is something that can affect the whole world.
What can we do? First and foremost we need to get more data off the Gulf Stream to make decisions on how to improve its flow. As of right now there is no current game plan to restore the Gulf Stream. The only best solution that is in place right now is to leave it the way it is, in hopes that it will restore its self. This is in hope that eventually the oil particulates will disappear and that the natural systems of temperature, wind, salinity and tides will take care of our problem. The real question is what can we do in the future?
3 comments:
I don't think that the oil particulates will ever "disappear". However, assuming continued clean-up efforts I hope that this system can regain some of its integrity.
..And now that I have spent the last 5 minutes stewing in my head about how much I hate the petroleum industry, I will only say that hope we can soon find alternate and cost effective means of energy to avoid disasters like this.
I guess I never really thought about how the oil spill could cause global problems! I definately agree that the oil spill had some relationship to the problems you mentioned but I also think that more data should be be collected before this is the sole cause of such problems. However, it does seem like a big coincidence though that all these problems have occurred since the BP’s oil spill so I think you bring up some good points! Thanks for sharing.
I agree with Athena. I do no think that these particulates will ever go away, but I do think over time they will be spread out enough to whetre it causes less harm than now. I think in the future more strict regulations and precautions will be taken in order to decrease the chances of something like this happening again. I also didnt realize that the oil spill would affect the weather conditions in these places as much as they do. I realized they would have an effect but not to the point of measureable snowfall early. It is true that this has occurred but is it because of the oil spill... or by chance?
Post a Comment