While we await the death of The Gulf of Mexico courtesy of our own stupidity, it behooves us to review the information available.
Scientists are now dumping pigs into dead ocean zones to test what scavengers will emerge to feast on their carcasses.
Pigs, Pollution, and Ocean Dead Zones. Can You Hear Me Now? April 5, 2010
By dropping the bodies of deceased pigs into known ocean dead zones, scientists are hoping to learn what kinds of animals would emerge to feed on the disintegrating swine, and how long these scavengers could tolerate the low-oxygen zones.
The largest dead zone on the planet is now, you guessed it, in the coastal waters of the Mississippi river.
Below the fold for an overview of what is going on. Many links to other diaries for a kind of encyclopedia of the oilpocalypse.
Notice the tremendous overlap between these three pictures.
This is the dead zone.
From: http://www.worldculturepictorial.com...
By way of Fishgrease’s latest diary:
This is the oil gusher and its immediate effects.
Half of the earth's oxygen comes from our oceans.
innereye now has a diary up about the natural gas leaking from the Deepwater Horizon gusher.
bluefin's diary on The MMMS and Deepwater Horizon
I have had "my hair on fire" over this since a few days after the Deepwater Horizon sank. I realized, and predicted, that the growing and enormous amount of crude being released would eventually contaminate much of the Gulf of Mexico (and commented here on DK and elsewhere). And due to currents, winds and tides, would likely be picked up in the "Loop Current" and be carried to the "Gulf Stream". Whereupon it would then be transported by the Gulf Stream around the Florida peninsula and begin a journey up the East Coast and possibly as far as Ireland and the UK. Much as the Icelandic volcano ash is transported by the Jetstream over vast areas of the globe.
It is my position that, at the very least, large portions of The Gulf will be 'dead' as a result of this oilpocalypse.
The questions I have are:
a. Could The Gulf itself 'die'?
b. If The Gulf dies what effect will that have on the gulf stream?
c. The ocean's conveyor belt is connected to the gulf stream. Could The Gulf's 'illness' effect the gulf stream and disrupt the conveyor which would drastically, and suddenly, disrupt our climate?
From the President and Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Robert B. Gagosian:
Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?
Gagosian says:
. . . records of past climates—from a variety of sources such as deep-sea sediments and ice-sheet cores—show that the Conveyor has slowed and shut down several times in the past. This shutdown curtailed heat delivery to the North Atlantic and caused substantial cooling throughout the region. One earth scientist has called the Conveyor "the Achilles’ heel of our climate system."
and further,
. . .the North Atlantic is the source of the deep limb of the Ocean Conveyor. The plunge of this great mass of cold, salty water propels the global ocean’s conveyor-like circulation system. It also helps draw warm, salty tropical surface waters northward to replace the sinking waters. This process is called "thermohaline circulation," from the Greek words "thermos" (heat) and "halos" (salt).
and further,
In an important paper published in 2002 in Nature, oceanographers monitoring and analyzing conditions in the North Atlantic concluded that the North Atlantic has been freshening dramatically—continuously for the past 40 years but especially in the past decade.4 The new data show that since the mid-1960s, the subpolar seas feeding the North Atlantic have steadily and noticeably become less salty to depths of 1,000 to 4,000 meters. This is the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments.
So what we are witnessing is a combination of factors colliding in The Gulf:
- A massive oil spigot which will not be turned off for some unknown time. (Some have suggested never as a relief well will not complete shut off the spigot at the original site.)
- The largest dead zone already exists essentially right on top of this gusher.
- The potential spread of this crude into The Gulf Stream.
- A massive release of methane into The Gulf and further into the atmosphere which will further deplete the oxygen level, driving global warming, i.e. climate instability (remember the earth's climate can get warmer and drastically colder at the same time).
- The obvious effects of the crude on the 'immediate' area, depleting the oxygen.
- Unknown effects on the gulf stream and the conveyor belt, further disrupting our climate, suddenly and with completely unforeseen consequences.
This has to be the tipping point. Gaia can't take much more from her human children.
note: I am not a newbie. My other user name anonymity was unwittingly compromised by someone who did not know better. This is my first effort under my new handle which is much more appropriate anyway.