WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Controlled burning of surface oil in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico put 1 million pounds of soot into the atmosphere, researchers say.
A report by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said an estimated one of every 20 barrels of spilled oil was deliberately burned off to reduce surface oil slicks and minimize impacts on sensitive shoreline ecosystems and marine life.
The control burns pumped about 1 million pounds of black carbon pollution into the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to the total soot emissions normally released by all ships traveling through the Gulf of Mexico during a 9-week period, a NOAA release said Tuesday.
"Scientists have wanted to know more about how much black carbon pollution comes from controlled burning and the physical and chemical properties of that pollution," NOAA researcher Anne Perring said. "Now we know a lot more."
Black carbon can cause warming of the atmosphere by absorbing light, and prolonged exposure to breathing black carbon particles is known to cause human health effects, researchers said.
NOAA prepared the report in cooperation with researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
