Oil Spill Blogs

Gulfblog - http://gulfblog.uga.edu/

This blog is run by Dr. Samantha Joye at the University of Georgia’s Department of Marine Sciences, who is a leading a team of scientists conducting research on the massive underwater oil plume that was discovered in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The first dispatches were sent from aboard the R/V F.G. Walton Smith, where they were collecting data for this NSF-funded project; since they returned from their 2 week cruise, Joye has been updating the blog as the team works on their analysis. Several of the blog posts use a straightforward question-and-answer format as Joye tries to address the many questions that readers have sent in. Many of the questions relate to minutiae or esoteric concepts connected to the oil spill and marine science, indicating that readers are generally either experts in the field or had no knowledge about this stuff before the spill and have just been doing a lot of reading up in the past few weeks (I know several people who would fall into the latter category). Some questions are factual questions or requests for clarification about the scientific elements related to the spill, while others relate more to Joye’s research direction and methods. Still others are inquiries about Joye’s firsthand experience in the area, which I find particularly interesting as there are so many rumors swirling about that it’s hard to get an idea of what’s really going on, and it’s nice to hear from someone who doesn’t seem to have an agenda (well at least not as obvious as the various politicians/oil and gas PR people). While technically sophisticated and often conceptually complex, Joye’s answers are presented in clear, colloquial language and make for an interesting read even to a novice like me. I have remained shamefully ignorant of most of the goings-on in the Gulf (partly out of self-preservation – I get easily overwhelmed by the grimness of it all, and partly because I don’t know who to believe), but Joye’s blog provides one of the most informative and up-close accounts of what’s going on in the Gulf that I’ve come across. The blog is chock full of photos and links to various websites and news stories relating to the UGA research and the oil spill in general. Two thumbs up!

The Recovery Room - http://blogs.nature.com/NicoleRE/

This blog is written by Nicole Edmison, a conservation and nature biologist who was stationed near Venice, Louisiana, working with the Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research organization until early this month. In the “About” section of the blog, she says, “The master plan is to report to this blog on a regular basis with photos, video, and commentary on the wildlife situation. There are plenty of people focused on the politics and blame game circulating throughout the media so I'll avoid that as much as possible.” As someone totally burned out on the political side of this mess despite my every attempt to ignore it, I can definitely get down with that! Initially the blog was being updated quite often, with at least one post per day, but lately has gone a bit quiet as she has left the Gulf and is probably still recovering. The posts provide helpful animal-focused coverage of the spill, including a list of all marine species in the Gulf and updates on NOAA’s actions, but some also have some more technical discussions of the oil spill and logistics of trying to contain it. The more recent posts are really well-reported, with a bunch of embedded links to news stories and weather-tracking sites in a post describing the phenomenon of “tar balls” (I’m not touching that one…). Her latest post was intended to be a brief recap of her time in the Gulf, in which she addresses the political situation somewhat circuitously by giving her impression of what’s really happening down there, which again is something I greatly appreciate – not the ins and outs and back-and-forths of the blame game, but the larger truth of how the region and those living in it are being affected.

DeepWater Blog - http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/deepwater/category/deepwater-blog/

I’m not sure if this totally qualifies, since a group of scientists rather than just one contribute to this blog, but it is a highly technical blog on a site called the “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Portal” that is dedicated to “developing a portal that will consolidate many data streams to help response efforts.” The site is designed to be a resource for several “partners,” including government agencies, non-profits, businesses, and schools, many of which have acronyms that include the letters “OOS,” or Ocean Observation System. It is pretty much a “by scientists, for scientists” kind of blog, in contrast to the two others I outlined above. The blog posts contain tons of graphics and maps and charts that are really pretty but also completely incomprehensible to me. Gliders and drifters and Loop Currents, oh my! The idea seems to be to consolidate information, data, and analyses in one place to be viewed and used by many different groups in a variety of ways, which seems like a smart thing to be doing about now. A typical post includes an image of NOAA’s spill forecast for the day, with subsequent zoomings and other manipulations including overlaying satellite or radar images to try to predict what is going to happen next and what can be done. I may not be able to appreciate the information being presented on the blog, but I like the idea of people from different backgrounds and institutions working together to try to do whatever predicting and problem-solving they can.