So, let's take this disaster to the Limit...

[FirstLight]

What happens when it kills most of the gulf and seeps into the Atlantic as well? How will the rest of us experience it, really...?

I know that much of our oxygen comes from the oceans, but how does that show up on a global scale...?

Science geeks - do you have some speculations?
I hate to go all doomsday on you, but it seems like this could be one of the final nails in the coffin for Mother Earth, and us as well...


Edit to add: I'm on the West coast, and while I can imagine that fish and seafood will become harder to buy, I wonder what kinds of ramifications this may have on my side of the continent, ecologically.

[Taverner]

1. Some engineers are speculating this might kill off ALL ocean life...

http://pesn.com/2010/05/02/9501643_Mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_Earths_oceans/

[FirstLight]

3. I know!

That's why I am trying to wrap my head around it, biologicaly...

[RandomThoughts]

2. I don't think it will take out the entire planet. That sounds a bit to much like hype.

But the point you are really making, is how accurate was the corporate worst case scenario? I read here that they had to file some report on the worst case possiblity of what could happen, the article said it may not have been realistic.

[Taverner]

4. Please let it be hype...

[Rex]

5. I've never hoped more for something to be hype in all my life!

Because if it is truth, then we are screwed and so is our entire ecosystem.

[liberal N proud]

6. It is a scary, dire situation

[FirstLight]

7. it *is* scary...

If oxygen is depleted on the planet, does that mean we wake one morning gasping for air or what, though?

Like I say, just trying to wrap my head around it from a biology standpoint...I have taken lots of science clases, but this is beyond my comprehension

[aquart]

10. Plant a tree today.

[FarCenter]

8. The top 10 meters of the ocean contain about 21 billion million barrels

So a leak of only 100 million barrels will have no impact globally.

[FirstLight]

9. I disagree...

You are not taking into account the exponential losses of life for years to come.

Depletion of oxygen, foodsources and habitat has an impact...and yes I do believe it can and will be felt globally. Once this crud hits the gulf stream, England could be dealing with losses of animal and plant life at an alarming rate as well. Don't tell me this doesn't affect humans...

This is not just a simple math porblem having to do with surface water, etc...this is a complex ecological system of life that will be affected....on the entire east coast, if not across the atlantic.

Also take into account that your numbers of how much oil is spilled is INCREASING daily, with NO END in sight.

[FarCenter]

11. You are being alarmist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream

"Consequently, the resulting Gulf Stream is a strong ocean current. It transports water at a rate of 30 million cubic metres per second (30 sverdrups) through the Florida Straits. As it passes south of Newfoundland, this rate increases to 150 million cubic metres per second.<14> The volume of the Gulf Stream dwarfs all rivers that empty into the Atlantic combined, which barely total 0.6 million cubic metres per second. It is weaker, however, than the Antarctic Circumpolar Current."

There are 6.29 oil barrels / cubic meter, so the flow of the Gulf Stream is about 190 million barrels / second through the Florida Straits and about 940 million barrels / second by Newfoundland.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Do you even know what the word "exponential" means?

:rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. It'll make the surface of the ocean so slippery, the next time there's a wind...

the atmosphere will just slip off into outer space, and those organisms that can't hold their breath long enough will explode in the resultant vacuum.

[FarCenter]

15. Sort of correct --

From Oil on troubled waters – a historical survey
Heinrich Hühnerfuss
Institute of Organic Chemistry,

Early observations and applications

Damping of water waves by “oil films” has already been appreciated since
ancient times, however, knowledge regarding the causes of this effect has
progressed only very slowly since the first attempted explanations in classical
times. The first to describe this phenomenon was Aristotle in his
Problemata Physica:

Why is it that the sea, which is heavier than fresh water, is more transparent?
Is it because of its fattier composition? Now oil poured on the surface
of water makes it more transparent, and the sea, having fat in it, is naturally
more transparent.

Furthermore, Plutarch in his Moralia: Quaestiones Naturales ascribed to Aristotle
(probably from lost parts of that author’s Problemata):

Is it, as Aristotle says, that the wind, slipping over the smoothness so caused,
makes no impression and raises no swell? ...... They say that when (sponge) divers
take oil into their mouths and blow it out in the depths they get illumination
and see through the water. Surely it is impossible to adduce slipping of the
wind as the cause there.

In addition to these astonishingly correct explanations Plutarch offered alternative
but relatively obscure interpretations.

Another practical application of organic surface films added to the sea surface
was reported by Pliny the Elder (77 A.D.) describing the seamen’s practice
of calming water waves in a storm by pouring oil onto the sea, in order to prevent
shipwrecking.

---

Sailors have used oil to calm waves for many centuries. My recollection is that battleships would pump bunker oil overboard so that following smaller escort ships would have calmer seas.

[RedCloud]

13. Oil eating bacteria could have a delicious bonanza if it breaks up into managebale chunks