There’s a lot of talk about the allegedly slow reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill being “Obama’s Katrina.” I haven’t followed it closely enough to have an opinion on that. But could the moniker prove more literal than anyone now imagines? Blogger Alan Sullivan, who predicted “significant harm to the Gulf” from the BP explosion at a time when the MSM (and, at least publicly, the government) was paying no attention to that possibility — Sullivan later explained, “as soon as I heard the immense structure had sunk, I felt certain that uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable oil release would occur” — added this partly reassuring, partly terrifying thought on Friday:
[T]he Gulf of Mexico is not the Gulf of Alaska. The water is warm, constantly churned by winds, and full of oil-eating microbes. Also the sun is high and fierce from now through August. Oil will break up quickly, not persist for years and years as it did in the cold sheltered fjord where Exxon Valdez broke its back. However churning is one thing, raging another. One hopes we will be done with the Gulf spill before any hurricanes arrive. Gulf season starts earlier than the Atlantic, and tropical storms are not uncommon in the Gulf beginning in June. A storm could push oil much deeper into vulnerable coastal marshland.
And that’s in the context of this earlier post from Sullivan, who has been a skeptic of inflated seasonal forecasts of hurricane activity the last several years, but who is far less sanguine this year:
Seasonal hurricane forecasts are emerging. It is early, of course, but I concur with the expectations of an active time — and possibly very active. I think the University of Colorado forecasters might be too conservative, but all depends on the manner and timing of El Nino’s demise. As we see from the Rio rains, El Nino patterns are still dominant. Three months from now, that could change. Already I see the building high pressure in the sub-tropical Atlantic, and the persistent easterly flow here, that presage trouble, as these conditions steer storms that do form toward North America, when the time comes. Watch out, Florida! I doubt the state will go unscathed this summer.
And then, a bit later: “El Nino is weakening notably in the equatorial Pacific and cool anomalies are spreading over the rest of the immense basin. Negative phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation is reasserting itself. At present the most striking warm anomaly in the planet’s oceans is found across the tropical Atlantic into the Caribbean. This does not bode well for hurricane season. Be warned.”
It all adds up to, well, something else to prematurely PANIC!!!!! about. Alert Drudge!
P.S. Tangentially related, at best, here’s a Clancy Brothers song — written for a Gulf Oil commercial — about an oil tanker:
“P.S. Tangentially related, at best,…”
Indeed! And how so, at Worst? ;} And here I always thought I tend to Stretch the applicability of the Clancys/Makem repertoire to Life’s little Situations. :> But still let us Pray that the season’s gentle Waves & Winds remain deaf to the Siren song of Sullivan… 🙂
and Not Altogether Unrelatedly ;>, speaking (or rather, Singing 🙂 of Gulf bringin’ home the Oil to Bantry Bay, you’ll surely want to know of the ongoing Peoples’ Struggle against Shell’s plan for pipin’ in the Gas to County Mayo.
(Note the Report stating, among other Findings, that “Whether or not the protesters are correct in the human rights that they are asserting is irrelevant under the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders”, and that “Allegations of republican direction of protests in Mayo appear unfounded and inaccurate.” 😉
Just a thought, but …
Hurricanes gain their energy from the oceans releasing their energy into the air mass as it passes over the oceans, right ?
So – if there is a humungous oil slick over hundereds of square miles/kilometres of ocean, then that slick should act as a sort of insulator to significantly lessen the energy transfer from ocean to air mass within that area …
Any comments/observations pro or con ?
And sort of weather-related – seems that some of Nashville is having some problems with flooding …
Didn’t you live somewhere near there for a while ?
“Any comments/observations pro or con ?”
Well since you so cordially Invite the meteorogically One-eyed to respond to the Blind, Alasdair: sure. :> Con: it’s my (mis?)understanding that the energy typically Sucked up from the warmish Wave by the cool Wind is in the form of Heat energy. (I’d refer you to Maxwell’s theory of hot body properties but I fear that might divert you into fond musings upon the herds of Lowland Sheep, so I Won’t. 🙂 Now if So — and if the Oil slick raised up from the deep Depths of the seabed is actually Cooler than the briny ocean’s surface — then, Yeah. / But OTOH if the US Coast Guard, possibly assisted by the Army Engineers and/or Her Majesty’s Scots Dragoons, sets the whole bloody thing experimentally Ablaze shortly before the Cyclone sweeps in: Well.
[Re your #4: they lived in the east-Tennessee city of Knoxville, well beyond the current middle-Tennessee Nashville flood zone. They were up in the heavily Republican Highlands. You’d have Approved. (I think 😉