DeepWater Horizon Oil Spill

The gliders continue the survey in the Gulf.  All gliders are flying well.

The Scripps/WHOI Spray glider made a turn to the northeast  and has encountered a surface plume of low salinity water.

The NAVO glidershave also turned north.  They also have begun to encounter low salinity surface plume water.  The low salinity plume water is enhanced with CDOM and chlorophyll. There is also enhanced backscatter with an intensity that is on par with the subsurface features encountered a week ago.

The iRobot/APL Seaglider is making good progress.  The surface waters also show a low salinity near surface plume.  The plume also shows enahnced chlorophyll and CDOM.  The CDOM subsurface plume remains present as a dominant feature on the shelf.

The Webb gliders on the West Florida Shelf show a remarkably consistent picture. The dominant feature is a large subsurface plume of particles and chlorophyll throughout the shelf north and south.  A large fraction of the water column productivity appears to be at significant water depths.  This raises an interesting question that if a significant amount of oil is present, will it decrease the depth of the euphotic zone and will this result in lower shelf productivity?  This is a question that will need to examined as we move forward.

Figure 1. This morning’s oil spill forecast is the same as yesterday’s, likely meaning it is still being updated. We’ll check in on it again later, but until then, lets take advantage of it and compare it to the new CSTARS imagery that was just posted from June 13 and 14.  One Navy drifter looks like ti traveled with the potential beached oil on the far western side of the slick.

Figure 2.  First the big picture from June 13. A swath running from the western side of the Loop Current eddy all the way up to the coast of Mississippi & Alabama.  The darker region of the slick is clearly visible.

Figure 3. Now the image for June 14, covering the coastal region from Louisiana to Florida border.