Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Huge chamber positioned over U.S. Gulf oil leak

VENICE, La. – BP Plc engineers carefully lowered a massive metal chamber toward a gushing oil well on the Gulf of Mexico seabed Friday in a high-stakes mission to contain a leak that threatens an environmental catastrophe on U.S. shores. The four-story structure, BP’s only short-term hope of controlling the leak, is supposed to redirect […]

Gulf wildlife ‘dead zone’ keeps growing

By Jennifer ViegasFri May 7, 2010 08:40 AM ET Experts who assessed the Exxon Valdez disaster describe how the Gulf oil spill could affect birds, reptiles, shrimp, fish and other wildlife. An over 7,000-square-mile wildlife “dead zone” located in the center of the Gulf of Mexico has grown from being a curiosity to a colossus […]

Fire danger from fumes delays lowering of oil spill containment box

By HARRY R. WEBER and TAMARA LUSH (AP) ON THE GULF OF MEXICO — The captain of a boat hauling a box that is designed to capture the oil spewing into the Gulf says the delay in lowering it into the ocean is being caused by oil fumes that could ignite. Capt. Demi Shaffer tells […]

Deep beneath the Gulf, oil may already be wreaking havoc on sea life, contaminating food chain

By Cain Burdeau And Harry R. Weber NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The oil you can’t see could be as bad as the oil you can. While people anxiously wait for the slick in the Gulf of Mexico to wash up along the coast, globules of oil are already falling to the bottom of the sea, […]

Researcher at ‘ground zero’ of Gulf oil spill finds ‘a lot’ of oil on long-studied sea floor

GULF OF MEXICO (WLOX) – A team of Mississippi scientists reached the edge of the growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday. Dr. Vernon Asper, Professor of Marine Resources at USM and Chairman of the Commission of Marine Resources, sent an email to WLOX News saying he’s at “ground zero” of the oil […]

Oil slick hits Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana

Oil from a massive slick in the Gulf of Mexico has started washing ashore on an island chain off the coast of Louisiana, US officials have confirmed. Pelicans and other birds covered in oil have been found on the uninhabited Chandeleur islands, which are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge. A federal maritime agency […]

Graph of the Day: Projected Oil Spill Path to 9 May 2010

Weather today continued to allow both NOAA overflights and dispersant operations. Overflight observation flights were concentrated around the Chandeleur Islands. During these overflights, trained observers recorded locations of oil, affected wildlife, and other relevant observations. Overflights will continue tomorrow with a goal to observe the northern and eastern boundaries of the slick. Two in-situ burns […]

‘Pinkish oily substance’ washing into New Harbor Island wetland – Hundreds of dead jellyfish seen – Ocean west of the Mississippi River undefended

By Cain Burdeau,Harry R. Weber, The Associated Press 6/05/2010 3:36 PM NEW ORLEANS – Crews prepared Thursday to lower a 100-tonne box they hoped would cut off most of the crude spewing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the urgency of their task underscored by oil that started washing up on delicate […]

Image of the Day: Gulf Oil Spill Viewed from ISS, 4 May 2010

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, Expedition 23 flight engineer, photographed the tail end of the Mississippi Delta showing the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on May 4, 2010. Part of the river delta and nearby Louisiana coast appear dark in the sunglint. This phenomenon is caused by sunlight reflecting off […]

Graph of the Day: Extreme One-Day Precipitation Events in the Lower 48 States, 1910–2008

This figure shows the percentage of the land area of the lower 48 states where a much greater than normal portion of total annual precipitation has come from extreme single-day precipitation events. The bars represent individual years, while the line is a smoothed nine-year moving average. In recent years, a larger percentage of precipitation has […]

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