Hurricane Could Spread Gulf Spill Far and Wide

The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1 with two exceptional facts: The tropical Atlantic's hurricane growing factory is warmer than ever and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is still growing.

This raises one very worrisome question: What will happen to the oil if a powerful cyclone enters the Gulf?

Experts say it could accelerate the spread of oil far and wide.

"It will be everywhere in the Gulf and East Coast of the U.S.," said oceanographer Peter Niiler of the University of California at San Diego. Especially if the spill continues to a year, he said.

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Niiler is not speculating. He has studied the way ocean currents and winds moved hundreds of "drifter" buoys around the Gulf. In the drifters' 90-day lifespan, he has seen them scatter to all parts of the Gulf with the help of a tropical storm with 40-knot winds.

Some drifters were found as far west as Texas and others were caught in the Loop Current that carries Gulf water out and around to the East Coast of North America.

What's more, said Niiler, there's no evidence that oil will be diluted by the time it reaches the East Coast.

"We see Mississippi water in the Loop Current all the way to Cape Cod," said Niiler. "It's not mixed up."

And neither will any oil slicks that are sucked into the Loop, he said, unless there is something causing the water to mix, like a hurricane. A powerful hurricane can cause the ocean waters to mix down to 150 meters.

As for what an oil slick will do in a hurricane, it will surely cease to exist as a discreet layer on top of the water, said Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist for the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

That's because during the worst of a hurricane the ocean surface itself ceases to exist and becomes a continuum with the sky.

Rather that staying on the surface, the oil would be mixed with waters as deep as 150 meters down, said Trenberth. What happens after that is anyone's guess.

So how likely is it that a hurricane will strike the region?

The eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean, where disturbances from Africa are transformed into hurricanes, is experiencing record high temperatures, even higher than in 2005, and that was the most hurricane-ridden season on record, explained Trenberth.

It was in 2005 that the Atlantic churned out 28 tropical and subtropical cyclones -- the year officials resorted to using the Greek alphabet to name storms because they had run through the usual alphabetized names.

But there's some good news on the hurricane front, said Trenberth: Temperatures in the Caribbean are rather low. And since hurricanes need warm water to grow, this could keep the storms in check -- and away from the Gulf region.

"It's likely to be quite a vigorous year for tropical storm disturbances," said Trenberth, "but they might peter out."

The official NOAA 2010 hurricane season outlook is scheduled to be announced on May 27.