[ExI] Supercomputer oil slick sims predict greasy Atlantic

[Tomasz Rola]

This is not new news, but rather a month old one:

 [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/07/ncar_oil_slick_sim/ ]

Note: the simulations had been done with ink, not oil. To check for oil 
they would have to change the code, I think.

(...)
"I've had a lot of people ask me, 'Will the oil reach Florida?'" Synte 
Peacock, one of the NCAR researchers who did the simulation, said in a 
report on the early findings released by NCAR. "Actually, our best 
knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach 
far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood."
(...)
The simulations show that once the dye (and hence the oil slick) hits the 
Loop Current, a fast-moving, clockwise whirl linking the tip of the 
Yucatan Peninsula to the western edge of the Florida Panhandle, it can 
quickly run up the Atlantic Coast as far north as Cape Hatteras in North 
Carolina before being sucked out into the Atlantic where it disperses 
across a wide area. So not only will the BP slick reach Florida, it will 
absolutely engulf it. The Loop Current runs at about 40 miles per day, but 
the Gulf Stream current in the Atlantic can do 100 miles per day, so the 
oil could really move fast once it rounds the Panhandle, heading east.

The BP slick could have a dramatic effect on Europe as well. Martin 
Visbeck, of the University of Kiel in Germany, is part of the team trying 
to figure that out using these simulations. "Our assumption is that the 
enormous lateral mixing in the ocean together with the biological 
disintegration of the oil should reduce the pollution to levels below 
harmful concentrations." Visbeck explained in the NCAR statement. "But we 
would like to have this backed up by numbers from some of the best ocean 
models."
(...)

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **