"Oil From Spill May Be Entering Gulf Loop"

"New satellite images show oil starting to enter the Gulf Loop current, which would pull it through the Florida Keys, into the Gulf Stream and up to Palm Beach County, according to a scientist tracking the oil spewing into the gulf.

The new images, taken Saturday by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "clearly [show] that the oil is being pulled into the Loop current," according to a release from Mitch Roffer, an oceanographer who runs Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service and has been providing daily updates on the spill's movement.

"We still don't know how long it's going to take to get around to the Keys and then the east coast of Florida - it just remains to be seen," Roffer said Saturday.

That process, which is difficult to predict, would take at least a week, and possibly several, scientists say.

Richard Dodge, the dean of the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center, said he'd seen Roffer's report and "it looks to me like he's right. "

Adam Playford reports for the Palm Beach Post May 15, 2010.

See Also:

"Oil Spill Encounters Loop Current" (The Weather Channel)

"Gulf Oil Spill Close to Loop Current" (Pensacola News Journal)

NASA Image

Skytruth Annotation

"What's the Gulf Loop Current" (Treehugger)

"Oil Spill Update: Entering the Loop?" (Orlando Sentinel)

"Scientists Worry Current Could Carry Oil To Keys" (AP)

"Researchers Ponder a Hurricane Hitting the Oil-Slicked Gulf of Mexico" (ClimateWire)

"Underwater Oil Plumes Alarm Scientists" (NPR)

"Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf" (New York Times)

"NOAA Skeptical of Oil-Plume Reports" (Greenspace/LATimes)

"Oil Spill Science: Where’S the Oil?" (The Great Beyond/Nature)