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BP lowers cap over damaged oil well

The feat is an important step in the effort to contain the flow into the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama plans Friday to make his third trip to the region since the spill.

June 03, 2010|By Bettina Boxall and Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times

"I've had a lot of people ask me, 'Will the oil reach Florida?' " said scientist Synte Peacock, who was involved in the National Center for Atmospheric Research's modeling of six computer simulations of the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current. "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 Loop Current, fed by warm water from the Caribbean, curves around the gulf and connects to the Florida Current before joining the Atlantic's gulfstream.

Scientists and collaborators affiliated with the atmospheric research center used a powerful computer model to simulate how a liquid released at the spill site could disperse and circulate. It showed that once it was caught in the Loop Current, it could be carried as far as 40 miles per day. In the gulfstream, oil could travel up to 100 miles a day, or 3,000 miles a month, according to the center.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

margot.roosevelt@latimes.com

Times staff writers Michael Muskal, Tina Susman and Ronald D. White and Jim Tankersley of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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