The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) just released this horrifying animation of how ocean currents may carry all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. According to their computer modeling of currents and the oil, the spill “might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer.”
“I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?'” says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock in a statement accompanying the animation, which he worked on. “Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.”
The models show oil hitting Florida’s Atlantic coast within a few weeks, then moving north as far as about Cape Hatteras, N.C., before heading east.