Study: Up to 79 Percent of Oil Remains in Gulf

The University of Georgia, working with the Georgia Sea Grant, has released a report that concludes up to seventy-nine percent of the oil remains in the Gulf and that it is a threat to the ecosystem. This is contrary to more optimistic reports from BP and the government.

Athens, Ga. – A report released today by the Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia concludes that up to 79 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem.

The report, authored by five prominent marine scientists, strongly contradicts media reports that suggest that only 25 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill remains.

“One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless,” said Charles Hopkinson, director of Georgia Sea Grant and professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are.”

Hopkinson and Joye will discuss the report and the fate of gas released into the Gulf of Mexico at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 17. The briefing will be held in Room 261 of the Marine Sciences building on the UGA campus. There is of particular concern about the methane gas, as -- like with oil -- it can impact the oxygen content of the water, as well as being a greenhouse gas twenty times more potent than C02. There has been difficulty in measuring the exact amount of gas, which has impacted the ability to accurately measure the oil released, since the two hydrocarbons were coming out of the blow well together.

Between 4.1 and 4.8 million barrels (172.2 - 201.6 million gallons) of oil is estimated to have gushed into the Gulf during what has been established as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The study did say that "on an optimistic note" that natural processes "continue to transform, dilute, degrade and evaporate the oil. They add that circular current known as the Franklin Eddy is preventing the Loop Current from bringing oil-contaminated water from the Gulf to the Atlantic, which bodes well for the East Coast."

The report is available at this link.

LABELS: BP, ENVIRONMENT, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, SCIENCE

What Global Warming Looks Like...So Far

Dr. James Hansen

Contrary to a popular misconception, the rate of warming has not declined. Global temperature is rising as fast in the past decade as in the prior two decades, despite year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Nino-La Nina cycle of tropical ocean temperature. Record high global 12-month running-mean temperature for the period with instrumental data was reached in 2010.

The July 2010 global map of surface temperature anomalies (Figure 1), relative to the average July in the 1951-1980 period of climatology, provides a useful picture of current climate.

Figure 1.

It was more than 5°C (about 10°F) warmer than climatology in the eastern European region including Moscow. There was an area in eastern Asia that was similarly unusually hot. The eastern part of the United States was unusually warm, although not to the degree of the hot spots in Eurasia. There were also substantial areas cooler than climatology, including a region in central Asia and the southern part of South America. The emerging La Nina is now moderately strong, as evidenced by the region cooler than climatology along the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean.

The global average July 2010 temperature was 0.55°C warmer than climatology in the GISS analysis, which puts 2010 in practically a three way tie for third warmest July. July 1998 was the warmest in the GISS analysis, at 0.68°C.

The 12-month running mean of global temperature (Figure 2) achieved a record high level during the past few months. Because the current La Nina will continue at least several months, and likely strengthen somewhat, the 12-month running mean temperature is expected to decline during the second half of 2010.

Figure 2.

Will calendar year 2010 be the warmest in the period of instrumental data? Figure 3 shows that through the first seven months 2010 is warmer than prior warm years. The difference of +0.08°C compared with 2005, the prior warmest year, is large enough that 2010 is likely, but not certain, to be the warmest year in the GISS record. However, because of the cooling effect of La Nina in the remainder of the year, there is a strong possibility that the 2005 and 2010 global temperatures will be sufficiently close that they will be practically indistinguishable.

Figure 3.

Climate anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2010, including the heat in Eastern Europe and unusually heavy rainfall and floods in several regions, have received much attention. Are these climate anomalies an example of what we can expect global warming to look like? Maps of temperature anomalies, such as Figure 1, are useful for helping people understand the role of global warming in extreme events.

The location of extreme events in any particular month depends on specific weather patterns, which are unpredictable except on short time scales. The weather patterns next summer will be different than this year. It could be a cooler than average summer in Moscow in 2011.

But note in Figure 1, and similar maps for other months, that the area warmer than climatology already (with global warming of 0.55°C relative to 1951-1980) is noticeably larger than the area cooler than climatology. Also the magnitude of warm anomalies now usually exceeds the magnitude of cool anomalies.

What we can say is that global warming has an effect on the probability and intensity of extreme events. This is true for precipitation as well as temperature, because the amount of water vapor that the air carries is a strong function of temperature. So the frequency of extremely heavy rain and floods increases as global warming increases. But at times and places of drought, global warming can increase the extremity of temperature and associated events such as forest fires.

The paper describing the GISS analysis of global temperature has been revised in response to reviewer suggestions and submitted to Reviews of Geophysics. The biggest change in the paper is inclusion of an additional analysis is which global temperature change is based only on stations located in "pitch dark" regions, i.e., regions with satellite-observed brightness below the satellite’s detection limit (1 μW/m2/sr/μm). Our standard analysis uses stations with satellite-observed brightness below 32 μW/m2/sr/μm. This more strict brightness limitation has no significant effect on analyzed global temperature change, providing additional confirmation that any urban effect on the GISS analysis of global temperature change is small.

The summary section of the revised paper is available at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_summary.pdf and the entire paper is at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0803.pdf

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Doctor James Hansen, an adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Sciences. His website can be found at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/


LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, GISS, GLOBAL WARMING, JAMES HANSEN, NASA, SCIENCE

U.S. Energy Secretary: BP Oil Spill Update

by Steven Chu

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu
talks with President Barack Obama

As you may know, I’ve spent much of the last three months working to help contain the BP oil spill. I recently returned from my seventh trip to Houston, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to update you on our work to seal the damaged well in the Gulf.

My job has been to oversee the federal science team – a group of top scientists from the Department of Energy’s national labs, the federal government, and academia, along with outside industry experts. We have been working seven days a week to tackle this very challenging problem. Our focus has been on collecting as much data as possible and making sure we plot the best path forward based on the facts.

Because of the gravity of the situation, the Administration asserted its authority over BP’s actions. As we evaluated the scenarios for stopping the leak, BP was not allowed to move forward on a course of action without the government’s approval.

The results of the well integrity tests (including additional monitoring of the wellhead and the surrounding area, which we had insisted upon) indicated that the well was likely intact, and we saw no evidence that oil was leaking from the wellbore into the rock formation. This meant we would be able to safely pump fluid into the well to attempt to kill it.

After the science team reached a consensus that the static kill attempt could work with minimal risk, we gave BP the go-ahead to proceed. During the static kill, the damaged well was filled with mud, stabilizing the pressure within the well and relieving a lot of the excess pressure on the damaged blowout preventer and ceiling cap. I am pleased to tell you that it was completed successfully.

This success led to a much more difficult decision: should we follow the mud with cement to further ensure that the well stays killed? This procedure had a higher risk of something going wrong. With cement, a mistake in execution could be permanent. We also had to weigh the dangers of having so many ships conducting operations within 1,500 meters of the wellbore and of the strain already being placed on the blowout preventer. Continued operations were also taking a toll on the ships’ crews; the longer they worked, the greater the danger. Still, the risk of something going wrong was very small, and the potential for dramatic progress was very high. Successfully cementing the well would be a major step toward completely killing the well. We decided to proceed with the cement.

All signs indicate that the cement is holding. This is a significant step forward for the people of the Gulf, but our work is not done. The relief well is the permanent solution, and we hope to be able to intersect the Macondo well with the relief well soon.

We also must remain focused on helping the people, businesses and communities in the Gulf Coast region who have been affected by this spill. Restoring livelihoods and the environment in the region will take much more time than plugging the well.

We don’t want any chance that oil will flow from the well again. I will continue to work closely with the science team and the BP technical engineers in the coming days to make sure that the well is completely killed.

Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu is the U.S. Secretary of Energy.

Reposted from The Energy Blog.

LABELS: BP, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, FAUNA, FLORA, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL,SCIENCE, STEVEN CHU

Study: Phytoplankton, Plants at Base of Ocean Food Chain, in Decline Due to Warming Seas

by Janet Ritz

A study has found that phytoplanktons, the base of the ocean food chain upon which everything from whales to humans depend, have declined by as much as forty percent due to the increase in the temperature of the seas.

The comprehensive report, released by Dalhousie University, has determined the phytoplanktons are impacted by warming.

Microscopic phytoplankton that form the foundation of the marine food chain are declining, according to a new Canadian study that indicates that the ocean’s ecosystem and fisheries could be changing.

Researchers at Dalhousie University conducted the first global study of the populations of these microscopic organisms in the past century and found the declines – averaging about 1 per cent a year, and approximately 40 per cent since 1950 – are correlated with increases in sea surface temperatures.

Phytoplankton (credit: NOAA)

Phytoplankton feed the organisms that, in turn, feed everything from whales to humans. The potential impact on the climate is as troubling. Phytoplankton, which live (and are dying) on the surface of the seas, produce oxygen.

In the oceans, ubiquitous microscopic phototrophs (phytoplankton) account for approximately half the production of organic matter on Earth... These fluctuations are strongly correlated with basin-scale climate indices, whereas long-term declining trends are related to increasing sea surface temperatures.

As with deforestation, the decline of phytoplankton impacts the vital carbon exchange required to control the presence of greenhouse gases that has tipped over the 350ppm threshold.

It raises the question that if this information had been available for the compromised (by the now debunked charges against climate scientists known as Climategate) Copenhagen conference, would it have made a difference to the outcome?

The release of the study means the rising ocean temperatures effect not only the climate but also threatening the global food chain upon which all species rely.  If we do not address the implications and look for ways to reverse this trend, is it possible that the many species already endangered by climate change have expanded to include us all?  Can we even take the chance that may be the case?  

One can't help but think of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, wherein the tiniest organisms destroy invaders ill equipped to defend against their unseen influence. Individual phytoplankton require a microscope to see them. Their influence on us is also not microscopic.

This study gives us a global view of the impact of the warming seas. Regardless of the geopolitics of climate change, no matter what anyone chooses to believe or not, the total loss of phytoplankton would be a catastrophic global event. It must be addressed. 


LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, ENDANGERED SPECIES, ENVIRONMENT, FAUNA, FLORA, GLOBAL WARMING,OCEANS, PHYTOPLANKTON, SCIENCE

NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

“For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming,”

The report emphasizes that human society has developed for thousands of years under one climatic state, and now a new set of climatic conditions are taking shape. These conditions are consistently warmer, and some areas are likely to see more extreme events like severe drought, torrential rain and violent storms.

“Despite the variability caused by short-term changes, the analysis conducted for this report illustrates why we are so confident the world is warming,” said Peter Stott, Ph.D., contributor to the report and head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution of the United Kingdom Met Office Hadley Centre. “When we look at air temperature and other indicators of climate, we see highs and lows in the data from year to year because of natural variability. Understanding climate change requires looking at the longer-term record. When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”

While year-to-year changes in temperature often reflect natural climatic variations such as El Niño/La Niña events, changes in average temperature from decade-to-decade reveal long-term trends such as global warming. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. At the time, the 1980s was the hottest decade on record. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade. The 2000s were warmer still.

“The temperature increase of one degree Fahrenheit over the past 50 years may seem small, but it has already altered our planet,” said Deke Arndt, co-editor of the report and chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are more common. And, as the new report tells us, there is now evidence that over 90 percent of warming over the past 50 years has gone into our ocean.”

More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives. To help keep citizens and businesses informed about climate, NOAA created the Climate Portal at http://www.climate.gov. The portal features a short video that summarizes some of the highlights of the State of the Climate Report.

State of the Climate is published as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and is edited by D.S. Arndt, M.O. Baringer, and M.R. Johnson. The full report and an online media packet with graphics is available online: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.

More on this topic at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, JANE LUBCHENCO, NOAA, SCIENCE

The Planet Has a Fever

Have you felt it? The sweltering summer that has strained the grid? The floods and tornadoes and the hail? The increased humidity where it was a dry heat? The dry heat where it was moist?

The planet has a fever. That's not supposition. The National Climactic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recorded year-to-date combined global and and surface temperatures that are the warmest on record.

• The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for April-June 2010 was 1.26°F (0.70°C) above the 20th century average—the warmest April-June period on record.

• For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 57.5°F (14.2°C) was the warmest January-June period. This value is 1.22°F (0.68°C) above the 20th century average.

• June 2010 was the fourth consecutive warmest month on record (March, April, and May 2010 were also the warmest on record). This was the 304th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below-average temperature was February 1985.

• It was the warmest June and April–June on record for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole and all land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

• Arctic sea ice continued its annual decline, typically reaching a September minimum. Similar to May 2010, the Arctic sea ice continued to decline at a record rapid rate—the fastest measured for June (more than 50 percent greater than average).

The Journal, Nature, reports that the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology predicts the Mediterranean region of Europe can expect the worst of record breaking heat waves:

Mediterranean most at risk from European heatwaves

Increased heat and humidity predicted to have biggest health impact in valleys and coastal cities.

Rome is one of the cities where the health effects of climate change will be most severe, researchers predict. A projected increase in heatwaves in Europe would hit low-lying river basins and coastal cities across the Mediterranean the hardest, say researchers.

Russia has experienced a heat wave this year from the normally cool Ural Mountains through their major cities, costing crops, lives and fish who died from the increased temperature of water.

Russian heat wave kills fish, crops

A state of emergency has been declared in 19 Russian regions due to the worst heat wave since the Stalin era. Saturday could see temperatures in Moscow hit 37 C, which would break the previous high of 36.6 C set in 1936. The state weather bureau in Moscow said it expected the heat wave to continue into next week.

Russia is facing its worst drought in 130 years, with little or no rain for weeks across several regions. On Thursday, officials reported that dry conditions have destroyed nearly 10 million hectares of crops. Fish breeders in central Russia have lost much of their sturgeon and trout to a scorching heat wave that continued Saturday. At Volgorechensk fish farm, near the Volga River, farmers say they have been forced to throw away 12 tonnes of fish because of high temperatures.

Hundreds of Russians are reported to have drowned in swimming accidents as they drink to offset their misery and take to unsupervised rivers and streams to escape the heat.

Russians sweltered Friday in record-breaking temperatures as hundreds drowned in bathing accidents often influenced by alcohol.

As many cooled down by swimming in rivers and ponds, often with no lifeguards, hundreds have died from drowning. The emergency ministry said more than 400 people had drowned since the beginning of July, while 1,244 people drowned in June.

The U.S. West Coast has not escaped the sizzle. That last few days have seen record heat in Southern California and NOAA reports that drought conditions in the Southern U.S. are expected to worsen.

NOAA Predicts Drought Conditions in Southwest U.S. to Worsen

NOAA’s National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center released its seasonal drought outlook today for the period from August through October. The outlook indicates already dry conditions across parts of Arizona and New Mexico are likely to worsen in coming months. The official outlook calls for current severe drought conditions to persist.

Climate scientists have warned of this for years. The tipping point of 350 ppm in greenhouse gases has been passed and it's given the planet a temperature. The consequences of fossil fuels have shown themselves to horrific measure in the Gulf. What has not been talked about is the methane, twenty times more potent a greenhouse gas than C02, that was released into the Gulf and the atmosphere during the Gulf oil disaster.

Now there is some kind of head-in-the-sand consensus building, amid the heat, that climate change is not real; a lasting impression left by a frenzy of reporting on the theft of climate scientists' emails, dubbed "Climategate," where scientific conclusions were put into doubt through allegations that have since been debunked (with retractions buried on back pages).

'Climategate' fallout may impact legislation

Five investigations into the "Climategate" scandal have now cleared a group of scientists accused of twisting data in an effort to prove the world is getting warmer. But many environmentalists and climate researchers fear the damage has already been done. British and American investigations have now largely exonerated the scientists, saying they did not warp their studies to reach a pre-determined end. But the public may not buy it. Some polls show the public's belief in the reality of climate change has ebbed, although other surveys disagree.

"Despite multiple denials from people in the field, this has really hurt," said Daniel Kammen, a UC Berkeley professor who contributes to reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The accuracy of the IPCC's reports, long considered the most authoritative on global warming, came under fire during Climategate.

"Even though the science of climate change hasn't changed, the public perception of it has," Kammen said. "You have less than 50 percent of people strongly believing in something that 99.99 percent of climate scientists agree on."

Perhaps the fifty plus percent who've decided it's more convenient to believe there is nothing wrong should go outside during the next heat wave.  Perhaps they should stay there without air conditioning, as do so many around the world, until they realize the planet has a fever of our making and that we are the only ones who can cool it down.

LABELS: CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATEGATE, ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING, HEAT WAVE, NCDC, NOAA,SCIENCE, WEATHER

Sharks Gather at Oily Shore To Escape Oxygen Dead Zone in Gulf (Video)

Ben Raines of the Press-Register in Alabama has captured a remarkable and disturbing sight on video near the shore; sharks and other sea life crowding the oiled waters in need of oxygen no longer available to them in the Gulf:

Video footage shot on June 18 by Ben Raines of the Press-Register and uploaded the following day captured both oil in the water and a Gulf water teeming with sharks. The video closes with a view of a discarded American flag in the water, clotted with oil like the crab in front of it.

...The Dauphin Island Sea Lab measured large areas of low oxygen water just off the beach at Fort Morgan earlier this month, beginning in water around 20 feet deep. Monty Graham, a University of South Alabama scientist, theorized that the population of oil-consuming microbes had swelled, and those tiny animals consumed lots of oxygen.

Sea life begins to die if oxygen drops below two parts per million. Those levels may explain the dense aggregations of fish seen in the surf zone. The turbulent area near shore is naturally high in oxygen due to the influence of the breaking waves.

The video has gone viral on the web. The story of oxygen depletion is likely the first and not the last as the impact of the oil becomes more widespread.

Related articles at this link:  Articles on the Gulf Oil Disaster

Historical Aerial Footage Reveals Scope of the BP Gulf Oil Disaster (Video)

Live video feed panel of cameras from the Gulf Floor (may load slowly): http://climate.the-environmentalist.org/2010/06/live-video-feeds-of-gulf-oil-disaster.html

The source article is available at this link:  http://blog.al.com/live/2010/06/sharks_in_oily_water_video_vie.html



LABELS: BP, ENVIRONMENT, FAUNA, FLORA, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, PRESS-REGISTER,SCIENCE

NASA's Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster Satellite Timelapse Video

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has tracked the disaster in the Gulf with two or their satellites, Terra and Aqua. They've put together this timelapse video from earth's orbit:



LABELS: bp, Gulf Oil Disaster, Gulf Oil Spill, NASA, SCIENCE

Oil Gushes Unchecked After Problem With Cap On Damaged BP Well

BP has removed the cap that was partially capturing oil on the broken well head this morning after an underwater robot bumped into the venting system. According to Adm. Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard, the oil and gas flowing through the broken blowout preventer will gush unchecked by the cap until they can put it back.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Coast Guard says BP has been forced to remove a cap that was containing some of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen says an underwater robot bumped into the venting system. That sent gas rising through vent that carries warm water down to prevent ice-like crystals from forming in the cap. Allen says the cap has been removed and crews are checking to see if crystals have formed before putting it back on.

A live video feed of twelve cameras on the damaged well is available at this link:

http://climate.the-environmentalist.org/2010/06/live-video-feeds-of-gulf-oil-disaster.html

LABELS: ADM. THAD ALLEN, BP, ENVIRONMENT, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL, SCIENCE

Flow rate from BP oil spill many times higher than previously estimated

by Janet Ritz

Update 6/15/10:  The estimate has been raised to 35,000-60,000 barrels (1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons) a day. 

The federal government has doubled the official estimate of the oil spewing from BP's damaged well head on the Gulf floor to 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.  That is many times the estimate a few weeks ago and exponentially more than the initial estimate calculated by the pictures of the disaster provided via government satellite.

A government panel on Thursday essentially doubled its estimate of how much oil has been spewing from the out-of-control BP well, with the new calculation suggesting that an amount equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10 days.

A barrel is 42 gallons, so 30,000 barrels would equate to nearly 1.3 million gallons a day. The Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 is estimated to have spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska.

Ira Leifer, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a member of the flow-rate group, said the new figures confirmed a suspicion he had developed, based on looking at satellite data, that the rate of flow for the well was increasing even before BP cut the riser pipe.

"The situation is growing worse," Dr. Leifer said.

This dramatic change in estimate came about after it was discovered that BP had high resolution video of the Gulf floor they had chosen neither to release or to inform Congress or the Flow Rate Group of its existence.  It is expected, as the newly revealed high resolution video is studied by the Flow Rate Group scientist who've been brought together by the USGS, the estimates will continue to rise.



"I really wish BP would understand that having good numbers is in their interest, too," Dr. Leifer said on CNN, "because, so far, to date, they've been trying solution after solution, and they've been failing, one after another.  One of the reasons why is that no one really knows how much oil is coming out and so they have been playing dice that we won't have another catastrophe on our hands."

Dr. Leifer and the Flow Rate Group have requested to directly measure the flow rate with instruments.  BP has resisted that request.  When Dr. Leifer was asked if he knew why, his response was that he had "to assume that, after this many weeks, the reason underlying is that they [BP] don't want anyone to know what the numbers are."

There may be a financial incentive for BP to have taken this obstructive approach.  For every barrel of oil that is determined to have spilled, BP is liable, according to the clean water act, to over $4,000 in penalties.  There are additional penalties for damage to wildlife as well as impending litigation from fisherman, hotels, rig workers, whole cities that have lost tourism, in addition to the damage requiring cleanup and the potential dead zone that a significant portion of the Gulf of Mexico may become.

Dr. Leifer says the flow rate will likely go up significantly as they study the well.  He has also raised concerns that BP is not acting in a safe manner and that the Flow Rate Group needs to get access to the well to make sure the work on the relief wells does not result in an even greater problem down the line.

Congress has written BP insisting they give the Flow Rate Group direct access to the well so they can measure the flow rate directly.   

President Obama has summoned BP's top officials, including their elusive chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, to come to the White House on Wednesday, June 16.

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg is being summoned to Washington for a meeting with President Barack Obama as politicians step up pressure on the company to settle damage claims and suspend the dividend.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government’s national incident commander, requested the June 16 meeting in a letter addressed to Svanberg at the company’s London headquarters yesterday. He asked for the chairman and other “appropriate” company representatives to meet with senior administration officials to discuss the company’s response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Allen said Obama will “participate in a portion” of the session.

A live video feed of all twelve cameras on the Gulf floor is available at this link: http://climate.the-environmentalist.org/2010/06/live-video-feeds-of-gulf-oil-disaster.html


LABELS: BP, ENVIRONMENT, FAUNA, FLORA, FLOW RATE GROUP, GULF OIL DISASTER, GULF OIL SPILL,IRA LEIFER, LIVE OIL FEED, POLLUTION, USGS