Air-Sea Methane Flux after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Leak

One of the key questions associated with the Deepwater Horizon's (DWH) oil leak involves understanding how much of its methane is still entrained in deep waters. Analysis of air-sea fluxes reveals a slight decrease in average aqueous CH4 from 3.3 nM in June to 3.1 and 2.8 nM in August and September, respectively. The flux estimate showed higher methane flux to the atmosphere after the blowout was capped (3.8 μmol m-2 d-1 in August) compared to 0.024 μmol m-2 d-1 during the leak. Almost all observations were within the range of historical levels. The exception was one large peak to the southwest of the wellhead, but its contribution to atmospheric methane is found to be insignificant compared to the total amount of methane released by the leak. This result supports findings that DWH methane remained entrained in the deep waters and consequently is available for biological degradation and threatens to deplete oxygen, adding further stress to an area that already suffers from anoxic-induced dead zones.