Oil “may” Enter Loop Current: Target-Florida Keys-Beaches-Beyond

I was stunned when I found this breaking news. I lived in the lower Florida Keys for 20 years and am intimately familiar with its waterways and wildlife. Unless you have been there you would have no real idea of the terrible devastation this will cause to that fragile ecosystem. Here is the heartbreaking story from The Huffington Post:

Scientists say the Gulf oil spill could get into the what’s called the Loop Current within a day, eventually carrying oil south along the Florida coast and into the Florida Keys.

Nick Shay, a physical oceanographer at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said Monday once the oil enters the Loop Current, it likely will end up in the Keys and continue east into the Gulf Stream.

Shay says the oil could affect Florida’s beaches, coral reefs, fisheries and ecosystem within a week.

He described the Loop Current as similar to a “conveyor belt,” sweeping around the Gulf, through the Keys and right up the East Coast.

Shay says he cannot think of any scenario where the oil doesn’t eventually reach the Florida Keys.

Here, thanks to Oso, is an even more thorough analysis of this crisis.