So where did all the oil go? And, no the Federal Science Report did not say 3/4 of it "disappeared"

[jpak]

The August 4 Federal Science Report stated the following:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/OilBudget_description_%2083final.pdf

26% of the oil remains the ocean surface, below the surface or in beaches and marshes - it is still there and did not "disappear". This was stated explicitly in the FSR.

24% of the oil was dispersed chemically or naturally - it is still there and and not "disappear". This was stated explicitly in the FSR.

25% evaporated or dissolved. FSR did not break this down into how much was dissolved in the water column and how much evaporated - while the evaporated fraction was presumably removed from the ocean surface (and did not get redeposited in precipitation), the dissolved fraction is still there and did not "disappear"...and...NOAA has posted the CTD profiles that measured the dissolved fraction on-line...

http://www.noaa.gov/sciencemissions/bpoilspill.html

25% of the oil was recovered at the wellhead, burned off or skimmed. That portion of the oil was removed from the Gulf and actually did "disappear".

So, the FSR concluded 50% of the oil remains in the Gulf. Depending on how much oil dissolved in the water column, the FSR estimate of Deep Horizon oil remaining in the Gulf is greater than 50% and as much as 60% remains - it did not "disappear".

The University of Georgia estimate of the fate of the oil was reported in the media this morning - it stated that 70-79% of the oil remains in the Gulf.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

The full UGA report has not been released. It is a memo. Their data, methods and assumptions have not been reported.

Neither the UGA memo or Federal Science Report has been peer reviewed.

So where did all the oil go?

Both reports clearly state that most of oil (>50-79%) remains in the Gulf.

So where do folks get the notion that it has "disappeared"?

beats me

[Skink]

1. yeah but the Crawfish are as big as Lobsters this season

[jpak]

2. Crawfish are freshwater critters and are farmed commercially - inland - in LA and TX

so they have not been impacted by the spill.

[Earth_First]

3. It did not disappear. It was raptured.

Next.

[jpak]

dreaded double post

ugh

[jpak]

5. not so - and on further thought, the UGA and FSR estimates may be closer in agreement

From the media reports, the UGA study appears to focus on the fate of the oil actually released from the wellhead.

The FSR was a total oil budget - the amount recovered at the wellhead plus the amount that was released.

If you remove the recovered oil fraction from the FSR data - the FSR estimate of the amount of oil released and remaining in the Gulf (the dispersed, dissolved and residual fraction) is closer to the UGA estimate.

People should actually read these things.

[Earth_First]

30. You don't do sarcasm do you? n/t

[jpak]

31. No, I think for myself - and I stand by that post

thems the numbers

yup

[Scurrilous]

4. Thanks.

K & R :thumbsup:

[jpak]

6. kick

n/t

[blindpig]

7. "So where do folks get the notion that it has "disappeared?"

It is implied, by the media, by BP, by the government. They don't come out and say it, oh no, that would be dishonest. But they are trying to manage public perception with half truth, incomplete data and subjective feel-good stories.

It's the biggest snow job since the Cold War.

[jpak]

8. No - folks wanted to believe that the government was covering BP ass

and they were all to eager too jump on the tinfoil bandwagon.

yup

[DirkGently]

9. Does the WH Energy Advisor saying "The oil is gone" count?

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Contradicting a federal report, five Georgia scientists say 80 percent, not 26 percent, of the crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Where has all the oil gone? It hasn't gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep," said University of Georgia marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson.

Earlier this month, White House energy adviser Carol Browner said on several morning TV shows, "More than three-quarters of the oil is gone. The vast majority of the oil is gone."Text

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/state/scientists%3A-80-percent-of-bp-crude-oil-still-in-the-gulf-of-mexico

[jpak]

12. Carol Browner stuck her foot in her mouth - and she knows better

yup

[DirkGently]

15. So it's hardly "tin foil hat" for people to suggest "the government"

has been misleading about the spill and what remains. And games aplenty have been played with the effects of the dispersants. Many, and perhaps most, mass media sources have reported that the U.S. government is saying anywhere from 75 to 80% of the oil is "gone."

I take your point that read carefully, the original report may not claim most of the oil is "gone." Depending on how you define "gone." But it is not the fevered imaginings of a paranoid public that it's being suggested, by both BP and "the government," that most of the oil has indeed somehow "disappeared."

And, to no one's surprise, that is not true.




editted for speling

[blindpig]

16. Yeah, she needs to go back to propaganda school.

Sloppy.

[jpak]

20. No - she needs to take a course in Sound Biting

The skills needed to reduce a science report into a short answer that nonscientists can understand are not taught in grad school.

Most people do not have a background in marine biogeochemistry and would be completely baffled if the fate of the spill were explained in scientific jargon.

On the other end of the spectrum - dumbing it down into a 5 second sound bite just does not work.

obviously

[walldude]

19. Well admitting that negates your entire OP..

You claim that no one said the oil was gone. Yet now you say.. "well she said it but she knows better". You original question was "what made people think the oil was gone". Well Ms FootInMouth certainly gave that impression. As did others.

[jpak]

22. A public friendly soundbite explaining a complex science issue can be easily misinterpreted

and it obviously was.

yup

[walldude]

24. Yeah but not just by the people.. the press jumped on it as well...

and you really can't expect people to have the time to disassemble every statement coming out of the WH. That's supposed to be the press's job...

[jpak]

25. If the media had bothered to read the FSR they would have known better

The vast majority of them are not science writers and some are all too eager to sensationalize stories or demonize science.

Take "Climategate" for example - there was a media frenzy over stolen emails that some concluded were "proof" that bad old climate scientists were frauds and cooking the data in favor of global warming.

Those inclined to believe that this was true will forever be unconvinced this is not true.

Even though three independent panels concluded that NONE of these climate scientists were guilty of scientific misconduct.

There are lots of folks that want to believe that Obama is involved with at cover up of the Gulf spill.

and they will believe just exactly what they want to believe.

evidence be damned

yup

[blindpig]

11. Did you read the link?

Some folks are all too eager to accept any self serving pronouncements from the government/BP propaganda machine. In truth we will not know the full implications of this for years, but it ain't looking good at all.

[jpak]

14. Then again, some people can actually read reports and do the math

before jumping to conclusions

[blindpig]

23. Well, I did read this:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/16/gulf.oil.environment/index.html

[jpak]

26. That oil is part of the dispersed oil fraction reported in the FSR

it's the dispersed <100 micron oil colloids described in the FSR.

This stuff adsorbs to sinking particles and is desposited on the sea floor.

No one denies this.

Oh yeah and the link states this...

"The Environmental Protection Agency has previously reported some oil turning up in the sediment at the bottom of the Gulf, but has not determined whether it came from the Deepwater Horizon spill that erupted in April or whether it was already present. And on August 4, the head of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration warned that oil could persist in the water even though the well has been temporarily cap"

no cover up

yup

[blindpig]

27. Minimize, obfuscate, waffle...

ain't nobody buying this shit.

Those 'sinking particles' are being ingested by minute organisms, that crap is going to be in the food chain for a long time.

[jpak]

29. The government report clearly stated that 24% of the oil was dispersed in 100 micron droplets

Once the presence of plumes of dispersed colloidal oil was established - and they were - there was no coverup....marine scientists predicted that much of it would be scavenged by sinking particles and deposited on the sea floor.

Where do you think that stuff came from?

This is what NOAA said in your link....

"And on August 4, the head of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration warned that oil could persist in the water even though the well has been temporarily capped."

there is no cover up

[DirkGently]

32. This whole thread's a cover up. And it failed.

Wow. What is the agenda here? There are the quotes, in black and white, with administration officials saying, on video, that "The oil is gone." That's what they said. The oil. Is. GONE. This is what BP said. This is the way it has been reported on mainstream, not alternative, not web-only, but MAINSTREAM, news sources. Major networks. Reuters. The foreign new service. Everybody. There is no talking past this fact.

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's not eco-hippies losing their minds. This is what occurred.

If there's a point to be made about how the NOAA report data should be read, that's fine, but given that other "real scientists" are busily debunking it as we speak, I think at best it's a minor one.

And the P.R. point is lost. Yes, there has been an emphatic, undeniable attempt to claim that the oil is magically "gone" when at best, some of it has been "dispersed." There has been gamesmanship regarding what "dispersed" really means. There has been parsing and painstaking factual gerrymandering around the idea that "it's not on the beaches."

Well, except for the tarballs.

No hostility here, really. But this spin cannot be unspun. It was a crappy deception in the first place, and it's predictably coming apart at the seams.

[earth mom]

13. Yep-they are actively working to cover up BP's MASSIVE ECOCIDE of the Gulf

:grr:

[jpak]

17. No they are not - NOAA and NASA posted satellite photos of the spill - it was clearly massive

NOAA and UNOLS vessels responded quickly to collect data on the spill - the UGA and the USF studies are examples of that.

You can access the NOAA vessel CTD profiles on line.

Lots of Gulf coast scientists have been interviewed about the impact of this spill.

Some of them blogged from sea during those cruises.

There is no cover up

nope

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

21. Spin ? - read the FSR and tell me where the "spin" is located

you can't find it.

nope

[spanone]

10. when you can't see it, well hell, it's gone...

doncha know

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. "So where do folks get the notion that it has "disappeared"?"

Loony conspiracy theory websites and subforums. "Alternative news" boards. Their own diseased minds, wishfully thinking that the gulf is worse off than it actually is.