Scripps in the News: Gulf Oil Spill

• Robots of the Gulf Spill: Fishlike Subs, Smart Torpedoes
  National Geographic — October 26, 2010
  This summer, as the world cringed at live video feeds of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken BP wellhead, one message was all too clear: Technology had gone horribly wrong. What viewers might have missed, however, was that the images were brought to them by a technology that went remarkably right—deep-sea robotics. Among the monitoring 'bots was one of the Spray AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) developed by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. "The great advantage of gliders is that they have the ability to measure and predict ocean conditions right away," said Dan Rudnick of Scripps, who controlled the glider via his laptop and iPhone from his office in San Diego.
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• Planned Distribution of BP Research Funds Worries Some Scientists
  Los Angeles Times — September 24, 2010
  With its well finally shut down, BP is close to agreement on funneling a promised $500 million in research funds through an organization overseen by Gulf Coast governors, not the nation's scientific community. Critics worry the expertise of distinguished oceanographic organizations such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego could be excluded from the complex task of determining the full effects of the massive spill.
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• Scientists Think Gulf Can Recover
  MSNBC — August 5, 2010
  The recent ecological history of the Gulf gives scientists reason for hope. In an extensive survey of Gulf of Mexico researchers by The Associated Press, at least 10 of them separately volunteered the same word to describe the body of water: "resilient." While others are optimistic, Jeremy Jackson, director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, is worried. "You have an ecosystem that's already severely stressed, then you add this major disturbance," he said. "We're going to pay for our sins double-time because we've neglected the environment of the northern Gulf so badly for so long."
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• Deep-Sea Mysteries: Why Drilling in 'Inner Space' Tests Human Limits 
  CNN — July 6, 2010
  What we know of the ocean's dark depths is secondhand knowledge. People who study the deep refer to it as "inner space," because it's part of a world that's so alien. "With all the rovers and things on the moon," says Lisa Levin, a professor of biological oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, "I think it's reasonable to say we've seen more of the moon than the deep sea."
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• Study Will Look at Oil Spill’s Effect on Whales 
  Associated Press — July 2, 2010
  Scientists have returned to the Gulf of Mexico to study the oil spill's effects on whales and other endangered animals. Tags, tissue samples, and sound are among the methods the scientific crew on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship will use to study sperm whales and Bryde's whales. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and from Cornell and Oregon State universities joined NOAA scientists on the multi-week cruise.
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• We Are BP
  San Diego Daily Transcript — July 1, 2010
  Jeremy Jackson, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, recalls leading an investigation into the effects of two oil spills off the Panamanian coast in the late 1980s. The spills were minor, a mere two million gallons in total. The Deepwater Horizon wellhead ejects two million gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico. Yet, Jackson found that two million gallons was all it took to destroy mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs along 55 miles of coastline. Some 25 years later, the Panamanian coast is still struggling to get back to something like normal, despite an intensive effort to hand-plant mangrove seedlings one-by-one on the coast. (Written by explorations editor, Robert Monroe. To access article a subscription to the Daily Transcript is required)
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• The Fate of Wildlife Caught in the BP Oil Disaster  
  NPR: The Diane Rehm Show — June 21, 2010
  Tens of millions of gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico in the eight weeks since the BP disaster, creating an environmental catastrophe unparalleled in U.S. history. Today we’re discussing how to assess the damage to wildlife and consequences for the ecosystem. Scripps researcher Jeremy Jackson is a featured guest. 
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• 'Gliding' Robots Patrol Gulf Oil Spill  
  Yahoo! Green — June 18, 2010
  As the Gulf oil spill approaches its third month, researchers are using a relatively new tool to track the plume: "glider" robots that use water power to zigzag through the ocean. Eight of these robots are now prowling the Gulf, driven remotely by researchers from institutions across the country. The gliders carry sensors to measure everything from water temperature to organic material that could mark the presence of dissolved oil. The Rutgers team is driving two of the eight gliders; the rest are controlled by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the University of Delaware, the Mote Marine Laboratory, the U.S. Navy, and the private company iRobot.
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• Will Bacterial Plague Follow Crude Oil Spill Along Gulf Coast?  
  New York Times — June 17, 2010
  Already, the spill is stressing and killing marine life. The most common vector for seafood contamination, the oysters that survive the crude could see their immune systems weakened, potentially leaving them easy prey for bacteria. And what if their offspring are weakened? There are few answers, said Doug Bartlett, a microbiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Mostly questions. "If the oil is killing all these marine animals and if the marine animals are highly compromised, would they be more likely to succumb to infectious disease?" he said.
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• USGS Director Quietly Wages 'Fearless' War on Oil Spill  
  New York Times — June 16, 2010
  Though she has stayed behind the scenes for most of the federal response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt has emerged in the past week as a bold, forthright translator of the web of numbers and scientific estimates surrounding the spill. A native of Minnesota, McNutt fell in love with science in high school and studied physics at Colorado College, which she chose over Stanford. She became interested in the emerging field of plate tectonics and focused on it as a graduate student in the earth sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
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• BP Bets the Planet—We Lose 
  In These Times — June 10, 2010
  Deepwater Horizon’s hydrates problem goes back to at least March, when, after numerous “kicks” (sudden gas releases), BP officials informed federal regulators that they were struggling with a loss of “well control,” according to documents the New York Times obtained from congressional investigators. Then, on April 15, five days before the disaster, BP acknowledged blockages, a problem associated with the frozen gases. But instead of stopping to get the well under control, BP continued work, hoping to complete drilling and cementing, before temporarily abandoning the well for later completion as a subsea producer. “BP was paying a half million dollars a day to lease the drilling rig [from Transocean],” says John Orcutt, distinguished professor of Geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “I can imagine, under these circumstances, management decisions trumping engineering. Decisions under pressure can make you stupid, make you cut corners.”
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• Panama’s Smithsonian Consulted Over Massive Oil Spill
  Newsroom Panama — June 8, 2010
  Panama’s world famous Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution (STRI) is being consulted over the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. STRI scientists are being consulted about their experiences with Panama's big oil spill in 1986 that was the subject of detailed studies at the Institute. The information they are passing on is not good news for the environment. In an interview published earlier last week, Jeremy B.C. Jackson, former senior staff scientist at STRI, and currently professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, forecasted that "this [the current oil spill] is a problem that won't go away for a decade."
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• What the Spill Will Kill 
  Newsweek — June 6, 2010
  Now it is increasingly clear that the initial reports of undersea oil were right, that life-giving oxygen in the water column is indeed being depleted, and that unless the laws of chemistry have been repealed, dispersants are likely worsening the tentacles of undersea crude. “There are plankton that go from the surface to the middle of the water column, and other things eat them and go down deeper, and other things eat them and go to the bottom,” says oceanographer Lisa Levin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “All the zones of life interact, and now they’re probably all being hammered.”
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• Scripps Robot Will Study Oil Spill 
  San Diego News — June 3, 2010
  Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is sending an underwater robotic glider in the shape of a torpedo to evaluate the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Scripps will help attempt to find ways to track the oil.
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• How Will the Oil Spill Impact the Gulf's Dead Zone?
  Scientific American — June 3, 2010
  Less or no oxygen kills sea life that cannot move fast enough (or at all) to escape it, such as the immobile Lophelia coral anchored on the sea bottom or relatively immobile animals, such as worms and crabs. "Increased microbial respiration as the oil is broken down may expand this zone," biological oceanographer Lisa Levin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego wrote in an e-mail. "Low oxygen zones in the water will lead to animal migrations and habitat compression, but also mortality in less motile organisms."
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• Federal Funding Cuts Leave Oceanographers, Spill Responders in Dark
  New York Times — June 3, 2010
  California is nearly done erecting high frequency radar along its entire coast. The system's 60 radar cost $21 million, covered by state bonds without federal support. (The Gulf's shared coast has seen little state investment in radar.) At first, the radar helped develop highly grained predictions for where stormwater runoff would cause beach closures, said Eric Terrill, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Then the radar got its time to shine during an earlier oil spill, when the container ship Cosco Busan rammed into San Francisco's Bay Bridge in late 2007, splashing 53,000 gallons of fuel into sensitive waters.
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• BP Suggestion Box Frustrating Companies, Not Cameron, Costner
  Bloomberg  — June 2, 2010
  BP Plc has received almost 35,000 ideas in just over a month on how best to clean up millions of gallons of oil from the biggest spill in U.S. history. So far, only four have made it into testing.  In that mode, researchers from around the country are preparing to meet tomorrow at LSU in Baton Rouge to begin to figure out how best to gauge the current and future health of the Gulf, according to Daniel Rudnick of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
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• Scripps Institution of Oceanography Chips in to Help Study Gulf Oil Spill
  San Diego News Network — May 28, 2010
  While British Petroleum scrambles to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is shipping an undersea glider to the Gulf Coast Friday to study currents and conditions and try to measure oil in the water. The glider, also called Spray, that Scripps is sending to the Gulf Coast was scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific to study the effects of climate on California’s coast — but, said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, in “national interest” the Scripps team is redirecting it to the Gulf.
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• Scripps Robot to Study Gulf Oil Spill
  Military Press — May 28, 2010
  A 7-foot glider called Spray will help study the Gulf oil spill. Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego plans to send an undersea glider to the Gulf of Mexico next week to see if the robotic probe can help evaluate what's being called the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The torpedo-shaped glider is one of several being placed into service by the scientific community, which is hustling to find ways to track oil that's been gushing from the sea floor since the Deep Horizon oil well ruptured on April 20.
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• BP Oil Spill: An Unexpected Laboratory for Deep-Sea Disaster
  Yahoo! News — May 27, 2010
  Tthe Deepwater Horizon blowout, now into its fifth week, represents an unplanned environmental experiment on an enormous scale – one whose full impact on Gulf of Mexico ecosystems may not become clear for decades. But scientists are scrambling to study the BP oil spill now, knowing that it is, in many ways, a unique event. "That's a good thing," says Lisa Levin, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Since "there's actually some baseline information" on these habitats, scientists can conduct before-and-after comparisons.
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• San Diego and the Gulf Oil Spill
  Voice of San Diego — May 27, 2010
  Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are contributing their expertise to research around the spill. John Hildebrand, the head of the Scripps Whale Acoustics Lab, took a sound recording instrument off a project in San Diego's waters and shipped it to the gulf to study the leak's impact on marine mammals such as sperm whales.  
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• Scripps Robot to Study Gulf Oil Spill
  San Diego Union-Tribune — May 27, 2010
  

  Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego plans to send an undersea glider to the Gulf of Mexico next week to see if the robotic probe can help evaluate what's being called the worst oil spill in U.S. history. "There might be a way to detect oil in water and see where it is going," said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, who is preparing the 100-pound glider for transport to the Gulf. "But we've never done this before. It's an experiment."
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• How We Wrecked the Ocean
  Mother Jones — May 24, 2010
  

  In light of the minute-by-minute horror show underway in the Gulf of Mexico, it's worth taking a look at the long view of human impacts on the ocean. And no one talks the long view better than coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. In this TED talk he shares his passion, knowledge, concerns, and personal experience. Sadly, what's going on now in the Gulf adds intolerable stressors to already overstressed ecosystems.
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• The Great Unknowns in Gulf Oil Spill
  Newsweek — May 24, 2010
  The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico falls into a distinct category from any other oil catastrophe; it's the first blowout in history to release oil in such deep waters, nearly a mile below the surface. As a result, scientists say, the impacts of this spill are likely to go far beyond the oiled birds and dead sea turtles, spoiled beaches and wetlands that we think of when we think "oil spill." Over time, any impact on the deep-sea communities is likely to have more broad effects, since the whole ocean is connected by various biological processes. "All the different zones of life are interactive in one way or another," says Lisa Levin, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
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• Our Eyes Underwater

  Newsweek — May 19, 2010
  At its greatest depths, the sea floor is a dark, tranquil, and foreboding place, beyond the reach of both sunlight and human divers. Yet the area around the Deepwater Horizon wellhead, nearly a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, is busting with activity—robotic activity. ROVs are essentially robotic submarines, used for underwater observation and interventions. “You could argue they're just as sophisticated as a space probe," says Glenn Sasagawa, a development engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. "They allow people to enter an environment that's hostile to human existence."
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• Hurricane Season Nears as Oil Leak Grows

  MSNBC —May 16, 2010
  BP's oil spill could make for one of the highest-stakes U.S. Gulf hurricane seasons on record. Storms could scuttle cleanup efforts, force containment vessels to retreat, or propel spilled crude and tar balls over vast expanses of sea and beach. Peter Niiler, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has researched how even winds caused by a low pressure cycle can displace floating scientific buoys from waters near Florida to Texas in less than a week. "Anything on the ocean surface, including oil, can move very fast and just about anywhere that wind or currents push it," Niiler said.
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• What If the Oil Spill Can’t Be Stopped?
  Water World — May 13, 2010
  With a quick solution ominously uncertain, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is on track to become an unprecedented economic and environmental disaster with millions of gallons of oil destroying an ecosystem as well as a way of life. “It’s going to be unbelievably bad,” said Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “This is a problem that won’t go away for a decade.”
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• Huge BP Spill Means a High-Stakes Hurricane Season
  Reuters — May 14, 2010
  Storms may scuttle clean-up efforts, force containment vessels to retreat, or propel spilled crude and tar balls over vast expanses of sea and beach, scientists said. Peter Niiler, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has researched how even winds caused by a low pressure cycle can displace floating scientific buoys from waters near Florida to Texas in less than a week. "Anything on the ocean surface, including oil, can move very fast and just about anywhere that wind or currents push it," Niiler said.
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• Forecast: Next Few Days Crucial in Capping Gulf Oil Spill
  Miami Herald — May 12, 2010
  With a quick solution ominously uncertain, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is on track to become an unprecedented economic and environmental disaster with millions of gallons of oil destroying an ecosystem as well as a way of life. “It's going to be unbelievably bad,” said Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “This is a problem that won't go away for a decade.”
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• Gulf Oil Spill Highlights the Increasing Dependence on Deep-Sea Robots
  Scientific American — May 7, 2010
  Given the depth of the damaged Macondo well—1,524 meters below the Gulf's surface—the use of undersea robots is the only way to cut off the flow of escaping oil. Specifically, the robots are remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and they are playing a major role in efforts to stop each of the three leaks created following an April 20 explosion on board the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. ROVs are a general-purpose work tool used by drilling companies, "the pickup trucks that deliver tools down to drilling sites and specialize in the physical manipulation of objects," says Glenn Sasagawa, development engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
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• Will Oil Reach Loop Current?
  Naples News —  May 7, 2010
  Since 1995, three tropical storms have moved through the Gulf of Mexico in June, the official start of hurricane season, according to Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, which runs a website that tracks severe weather. Besides the continental shelf, Southwest Florida has a sort of double insurance policy some call the Forbidden Zone. It was discovered in the late 1990s as part of a study funded by the U.S. Minerals Management Service to assess the risk of an oil spill in the Gulf.  “Southwest Florida is a bit isolated but if you have some big (wind) event, it is not,” said the study’s leader, Peter Niiler, a distinguished researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
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• Scripps Says Gulf Spill May Be 'Catastrophic'
  San Diego Union-Tribune — April 30, 2010
  Jeremy Jackson, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, spent part of the 1980s and '90s studying the long-term impact of a coastal oil spill that hit Panama. The spill -- about one-quarter the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster -- enables him to offer special insight about the potential consequences of the massive oil spill that continues to evolve in the Gulf of Mexico.
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