Area of Gulf Oil Spill Compared to the GTA

[dt_toronto_geek]

The New York Times also has an interactive spill document that can be displayed by date using the buttons near the top left of the screen. It displays spill data and closed fishery areas from April 22nd until today.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html

 

[W. K. Lis]

I find it a bit ironic that the attempts to fix the oil spill involves using the very same product (oil) to reach the site, attempt to fix it, and in the cleanup. No sailboats in other words.

 

[insertrealname]

À propos getting at the gravel and stone lying underneath useless suburban development: perhaps there would be some point in combining that with the construction of subways! Although considering the pace of transit development in Toronto, maybe that's not such a brilliant idea... Toronto is ugly enough without making it look like Swiss cheese.

 

[insertrealname]

The NY Times map is good, but I'm not sure what the differences in the oil slick extent shown there and in Paul Rademacher's oil slick. Presumably the data sources and their evaluation are different.

Here is today's oil slick moved into the southern Ontario area:

"Toronto" was specified as the location, but as you can see, it has been spared today, and now Oshawa, Oakville, Hamilton and Buffalo are now covered in a nice film of oil.

 

[insertrealname]

Just an update for today, June 12, 2010. The surface oil slick superimposed on the GTA looks like this:

Pretty awful.

A week ago, Paul Rademacher was good enough to answer some questions I had about the source and currency of his data:

[T]he oil spill data on my page is up to date daily. I'm using the data feed from http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/oilspill/, which itself gets data generated directly by NOAA. There's a real lack of authoritative data in the press: multiple data sources, and simplifications of the data. Even NOAA itself provides these high-details oil spill outlines along with much lower-res coverage maps and projected-trajectory maps. In short, the data situation a mess.