This diary has been created as repository of Quantitative data relevent to the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil spill as an adjunct to the Live Blogs and other diaries.
THIS IS NOT A PLACE FOR MOST DISCUSSIONS OR COMMENTS. This is for quantitative data. This is not a place for opinions, politics, vents, rants, conspiracy therories, general discussions, non-quantitative news, etc. Those go on the normal live blog threads. The idea is to keep a high signal to noise ratio so people can find the numbers after they are posted here. Post comments to give new data, correct old data, provide additional sources, question or confirm accuracy of numbers, give interesting calculations using the numbers, etc. Some non-quantitative facts that are particularly helpful in providing background information which is relevent to the use and application of the data may also be posted.
Numbers help keep the discussions reality based. The uncertainty on many of the numbers posted here may be rather large and by the time you combine some in a calculation you might be off by a factor of two. But this is still a huge improvement over non-quantitative approaches where you may be off by many orders of magnitude in perception. Molehills become mountains and vice versa. You may not know the exact size of the molehill or the mountain, but you will know which category it is. For example, if all the oil spilled up to day 41 (2010-05-31), were evenly dispersed in the gulf of mexico, would the concentration be closer to 1% or 1 part per billion (ppb)? 635500barrels/6.66e17gallons = 0.040076577 ppb. Localized concentrations, however, would be much higher or lower, but it gives you a sense of scale.
As you read about the Deepwater Horizon disaster, you will encounter quantitative data. Please post that data with links to sources in the appropriate sections within this diary. If you need data which isn't posted here, go find it, then post it here.
The content of this diary is in the comments sections and is largely contributed by the readers. The comment area is divided into various sections by comments beginning with the word "section". Thread comments into the appropriate sections.
Try to provide links and/or citations. Provide dates when a measure varies with time.
In a few of the sections, you will see commands for the GNU units program as well as the output showing how things were calculated. Sometimes you will see a command begining with "for"; this is a bash shell command containing one or more loops, such as to display the result in a variety of units. Sometimes the results line from units will be posted without the command that generated it. Consider this example which calculates the pressure at a depth of 5067 feet below sea level:
units v 1 5067ft*1.025g/cm^3*1gravity+1atmosphere psi
5067ft*1.025g/cm^3*1gravity+1atmosphere = 2266.2969 psi
It is important that you realize that you can not leave the units out and get the correct result. Unit conversion is done automatically in the calculation. For example, if you repeat the above calculation as 5067*1.025*1+1, you get a result of 5194.675, which is complete garbage. See "GNU units" in the analytical tools section for more information on this program which is available for most operating systems and also in online web calculator versions. GNU units also has a distinct advantage in the show your work department.
This is a collaborative effort. It will be what you make it. I have seeded it with about 13 pages worth of initial data. The data initially provided is individual numbers, but links to large datasets are welcome.
The data is in the comments section, not the diary itself. This makes it easier to post additional data in the appropriate section. Please thread your comments correctly within the sections.
- Diary
- Section: Tip Jar
- Section: Oil Flow rates and total oil spill volume
- Section: Oil Properties
- Section: Pressures
- Section: Design Details
- Section: Blow Out Preventor (BOP)
- Section: Driller's Mud
- Section: Dispersants
- Section: Geography
- Section: Ecological Impact
- Section: Timeline
- Section: Weather
- Section: Units of measure
- Section: Analytical Tools
- GNU units program
- Section: Analyses
- Section: Top Kill
- Section: LMRP CAP
- Section: Relief Wells
- Section: ROV data
- Section: Cleanup efforts
- Section: Ixtoc1 oil spill
- Section: Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989)
- Section: Oil slicks and Undersea Plumes
- Section: Human Impact
- Section: Financial
- Section: Formulas
- Section: Background information
- Section: Meta Discussion
- Section: Misc
Link to images rather than posting inline as some people have bandwidth issues. No embedded video.
For general live blogging, go to the daily Live Blog mothership to find the current liveblog thread, which changes multiple times per day. Make sure you have the latest mothership and child liveblog diary; check for messages pointing you to the successors.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
EDIT: the time allotted by dailykos software to post comments on this diary has expired. This document has now been incorporated into:
http://docs.google.com/...
There is a link at the bottom for editing.