A representative of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told CNN that the dolphins could be dying because the bacteria has become more lethal, or it could simply “be more severe, because the dolphins are more susceptible to infection.” In either scenario, the root cause seems to be severe environmental stress, which could have been brought on by the BP oil spill.

Teri Rowles, coordinator of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, told the St. Petersburg Times’ Craig Pittman that the oil “could have impaired the dolphins’ ability to respond to the bacterial infection.”

Investigators, however, still haven’t officially pinpointed the cause.

The deaths have been labeled an “unusual mortality event,” which is defined under the Marine Mammal Protection Act as “a stranding that is unexpected; involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population; and demands immediate response.”

Between February 2010 and October 2011, there have been at least 580 “strandings” of dolphins and whales in the gulf. Most of them have been bottlenose dolphins. According to a chart on NOAA’s website, 114 were stranded prior to the oil spill response, 122 were either stranded or reported dead offshore during the initial response phase and 344 were stranded after the initial response phase had ended. The worst month for dolphin and whale strandings were March 2010 and March 2011 — which saw 62 and 73 strandings, respectively. (By comparison, the March average between 2002 and 2009 was 17.9.)

BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, leading to the worst oil spill the country has ever seen. The well was capped on July 15, 2010, but oil has been spotted in the gulf as recently as last monh.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, humans can be infected in one of three ways: “eating or drinking something that is contaminated with Brucella, breathing in the organism (inhalation), or having the bacteria enter the body through skin wounds.” Researchers have recommended that humans and their pets stay away from any stranded marine life.

At 2,896 square nautical miles, the Keys Marine Sanctuary is one of the largest protected marine areas in the United States and is home to more than 6,000 species of sea life — species that seem to be dwindling.

According to NOAA’s report, nearly all of the sanctuary’s resources are in decline. The report cites large-scale changes in flushing dynamics over several decades, which have altered many aspects of water quality, as well as localized changes brought on by infrastructure. Nearshore water problems, related to runoff and other watershed stressors, have also led to a decline in the overall condition of the habitat.

The report details the decline in various habitats in the Keys.

Mangrove habitats, for example, are about half of what they were historically. Loss of corals (from regional decline in coral since the 1970s) has also dramatically changed shallow habitats. The list of human activities that have likely played a part in altering the habitats in the Keys includes: “Coastal development, highway construction, vessel groundings, over-fishing, shoreline hardening, marine debris (including derelict fishing gear), treasure salvaging [and the] increasing number of private boats.”

The report only makes a brief mention of the effect of contaminants on the Keys habitats. Under the heading, “What are the contaminant concentrations in sanctuary habitats and how are they changing?,” a table reads: “Few studies, but no synthesis of information.”

Perhaps the hardest hit portion of the Keys ecosystem in recent decades, according to the report, is the status of certain species — an area NOAA lists as “poor.” As the report reads, the reduced abundance of selected key species including several species of corals, queen conch, long-spined sea urchin, groupers and sea turtles “has caused or is likely to cause severe declines in ecosystem integrity; or selected key species are at severely reduced levels, and recovery is unlikely.” 

According to a press release, the roundtable discussion will address specific scientific and economic issues regarding effective restoration in the Gulf of Mexico, including “What role can science play in identifying what the linked ecological and economic goals of ecosystem recovery are in the Gulf?”

“Restoring economic vitality to the Gulf will depend on a foundation of sustained coastal health,” reads a press release for the event. “A discussion about an integrated, science-based approach to ecosystem restoration, and the knowledge gained from experiences in large-scale restoration efforts around the country, can help ensure that recovery efforts follow a path toward vibrant coasts and coastal communities.”

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been invited to attend the discussion, which will feature a panel with reps from NOAA, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the Harte Research Institute.

The damage from last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to this day, as fears of tainted seafood linger. The state’s Department of Agriculture recently unveiled a training program for restaurant workers in an effort to combat consumer fears. But concerns over a new oil sheen (possibly coming from the sunken Transocean rig) continue to plague gulf fishermen and residents; LSU researchers only recently determined that the oil has even impacted certain species of marsh fish.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency responsible for tracking climate patterns, said yesterday that high ocean temperatures in 2005 led to the worst coral reef damage in the Caribbean on record. The high ocean temperatures resulted in the bleaching of some 80 percent of the coral reef surveyed in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic. When coral is bleached, essential algae that grow on the coral are expelled. About 40 percent of the coral reef died, according to the new study, which is the most comprehensive on the issue.

NOAA scientists say the bleaching and coral death will have a severe effect on the ocean ecosystem. They also say that the problem is likely to get worse as ocean temperatures rise as a result of climate change.

“Heat stress during the 2005 event exceeded any observed in the Caribbean in the prior 20 years, and regionally-averaged temperatures were the warmest in at least 150 years,” said Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program, in a statement. “This severe, widespread bleaching and mortality will undoubtedly have long-term consequences for reef ecosystems, and events like this are likely to become more common as the climate warms.”

Environmentalists are using this study and other research to call for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the new crop of Republicans entering Congress raise questions about climate science, environmentalists are redoubling their efforts to educate the public on the issue, even as prospects for climate legislation in the Senate and a binding global climate treaty appear unlikely.

In a call sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists last week, Brenda Ekwurze, a climate scientist at the group, pointed to the NOAA data to underscore that “the science remains unequivocal.”

Eakin, who also spoke on the call, said, “Right now, coral reefs around the world are either bleached, dead from bleaching or trying to recover from bleaching.” Eakin added that scientists are seeing wide-scale bleaching in 2010 as well. Early data suggests the bleaching isn’t as severe as in the 1990s, when about 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs were destroyed. But Eakin said, “How bad does it have to be? Is one atomic blast worse than another?”

Another issue UCS is focusing on to build a case for action on climate change is forest fires. New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions will result in never-before-seen instances of global forest fires.

Olga Pechony, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who conducted the research and spoke on the call last week, said, “If we take care of the base cause of this increase, global warming, this would be something that would help. Reducing the levels of warming would reduce the levels of fire activity.”

Of the 8,000 oiled birds found by the government in the aftermath of the spill, just 2,000 were alive, and 1,300 of those have been released back into the wild. Of the 1,100 sea turtles found covered in oil, 535 were found alive, and 360 have been released back into the wild.

According to NOAA, the arm of the federal government that monitors climate:

The first nine months of 2010 tied with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record. The global average land surface temperature for January-September was the second warmest on record, behind 2007. The global ocean surface temperature for January–September was also the second warmest on record, behind 1998.

But what does this mean exactly and what do these numbers tell us about climate change?

I put this question to NOAA scientist Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate analysis branch at NOAA. Though he warns that it’s difficult to extrapolate based on short-term climate data, Lawrimore says that the numbers play into the long-term warming trend. In fact, he says global temperatures should actually be cooling during the months when La Nina cools ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Given that temperatures increased despite La Nina, Lawrimore says, “The fact that it was warmer than average speaks to the fact that the overall trend in global temperature is a warming trend.”

Here’s a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity:

How should people see these new data, and what do they represent in the larger climate narrative?

I think this represents the role of natural variability and the role of long-term trends in climate. And the fact that these play a key role in temperatures from month to month. Specifically, I’m referring to the presence of La Nina and the cooling influence that La Nina has on global temperatures. That’s kind of the natural component that I’m referring to and the fact that we have this long-term trend toward warmer temperatures, but there are things that come into play on a month-to-month and a seasonal basis that can affect global temperatures. While the trend may be positive, it doesn’t mean that every month is going to be warmer than the preceding month, or every September is going to be warmer than the previous September or the September before that.

Can you explain exactly what La Nina is in basic terms?

It is a cooling of ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. These cooler ocean temperatures, they have an influence not only on the global average temperature, but on overall weather patterns. They change the location of convection in the equatorial regions of the Pacific, which then has dampening influences in the way that atmospheric patterns move and weather systems move. And so, with La Nina, in general we have generally wetter conditions in the Pacific Northwest and generally drier conditions in the Southern tier. And also on a global scale with cooler temperatures on the Pacific, there’s less heat being put into the atmosphere and it tends to dampen the overall global temperature.

When you say dampened, what do you mean?

Lower than the global temperature would have otherwise been when La Nina wasn’t present.

But the data showed that the temperatures were higher?

It was still warmer than average and the fact that it was warmer than average speaks to the fact that the overall trend in global temperature is a warming trend. Colder temperatures are rising and long-term scientists broadly believe this rising temperature to be the result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. So you have this continual increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that has a warming influence on the global temperature. But, like I said before, each year is not necessarily going to be warmer than the year before because there are other natural variations of the climate that influence the global temperature. So, the long-term trend is up, but some years may be a little cooler than others.

So, this information sort of plays into the long-term trend, but any individual temperature or group of temperatures within  a few months is just one part of the longer-term story?

Yes, when you’re looking at climate change you really want to be looking at long-term changes. You don’t want to be looking at any one in particular month or season or year. That in itself doesn’t give you much information as to the change over the long term that is really important in understanding how greenhouse gas concentrations are influencing the climate.

The draft staff report said that the White House Office of Management and Budget denied a request by NOAA scientists to make public data about the worst-case flow-rate scenarios from the Gulf oil spill. Lubchenco, in her letter, said the commission “mischaracterized” what transpired.

Lubchenco said worst-case scenario modeling has “nothing to do” with calculating the flow rate and argues that the commission report confused the terminology:

NOAA’s modeling of long-term movement of oil using worst-case scenario analyses was completely independent of the efforts to estimate flow-rate. They are different. ‘Worst-case scenario’ modeling was designed to evaluate where oil may go over time and is not the same as ‘worst-case discharge.’

The letter also dismisses claims that low early flow-rate data could have impacted the federal response.

But the letter appears to suggest that OMB did in fact delay the release of the report, even if it didn’t deny the request by NOAA to release the information. “Due to the complexity of models, the challenges of accurately but clearly communicating to non-technical audiences what they said, and the dynamic nature of the event coupled with the desire to have the product be as current as possible, the work took some time,” the letter says.

One of the draft reports released by the commission yesterday said that the White House Office of Management and Budget denied a request by NOAA scientists to release worst-case flow-rate data. The White House has vehemently denied that claim, arguing that OMB sent back to NOAA a report on the spill because it didn’t adequately take into account a number of key factors. Gibbs stressed today that OMB never rejected the report and said it was not a flow-rate report.

“None of the scientific data was changed whatsoever,” Gibbs said, saying that the report, after it included information requested by OMB, was released.

Pressed by reporters about the commission’s report, Gibbs largely downplayed the findings, noting that it is just a draft and adding that the White House had some concerns about the accuracy of the reports.

Asked if the administration acknowledges any of the criticism in the report, Gibbs said, “There isn’t anybody in this building or anybody who worked on this that would say we did everything perfectly.” But he stressed that the administration mounted a “robust” response to an “unprecedented” disaster. The administration’s response, Gibbs said, “Prevented any of the worst-case scenarios from coming to fruition.”

Gibbs also said that White House climate and energy adviser Carol Browner misspoke “once” on television when explaining the administration’s much-criticized “Oil Budget” report. But the report clearly shows that Browner consistently mischaracterized the report.

As I noted in my story yesterday, the White House did in fact release an estimate in May of the worst-case scenario of the spill, despite suggestions in the report that it would not disclose the figures. The report also said that the White House Office of Management and Budget denied a request by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to release flow-rate data in weeks after the spill.

Jake Tapper at ABC News explains, summarizing the words of administration officials: “…that’s because the NOAA modeling was not taking into affect the oil that was being skimmed, burned and collected by Top Hat. OMB was the location for the interagency clearance process, and officials there wanted to make sure the information coming from the administration was as precise as possible, officials say.”

At the same time, the officials said “Carol was mistaken,” in response to the report’s criticism of White House climate and energy adviser Carol Browner’s mischaracterization of a key report on the spill.

President Obama is updated on the oil spill response in New Orleans in June. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama’s May directive to triple the number of people working to stop the Gulf oil spill may have actually hindered the government’s response. The Coast Guard, in the days after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, kept track of the government’s response to the spill on a “simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.” The White House denied a request by government scientists in the weeks after the spill to release worst-case oil flow rate scenarios to the public.

These are just three of the many revelations included in four draft reports released today by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which Obama established in May. The reports, which the commission notes are subject to change and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the commissioners, paint one of the most detailed pictures of the federal government’s response to the oil spill. And it’s not pretty.

[Environment1] The reports say the Obama administration was not prepared for a spill the size of the one in the Gulf, which spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean. They detail the many stops and starts of the Unified Command, which was set up to organize response efforts. And they suggest that the administration sought desperately to keep the oil spill from becoming for Obama what Hurricane Katrina was for George Bush.

The initial response to the spill — the first nine days — was marked by a sense of “over-optimism.” According to one report, “Responders almost uniformly noted that, while they understood that they were facing a major spill, they believed that BP would get the well under control.”

But it’s unclear what impact this over-optimism had on the response. “While it is not clear that this misplaced optimism affected any individual response effort, it may have affected the scale and speed with which national resources were brought to bear,” one oil spill commission report says. “In hindsight, some Coast Guard responders thought that their initial approach was too slow and unfocused.” The report notes however that despite the slow initial response, by mid-June the Coast Guard was “fighting a war against the oil.”

While the National Contingency Plan, the document that lays out how to contain and respond to an oil spill, was adequate in some respects, the report says, “In other respects, the plan was inadequate to handle the scale of the spill — its magnitude, duration, and effects on many stakeholders.”

At the same time, efforts by President Obama and the White House to shape the way Americans saw the government’s response may have complicated the effort. Responding to polls that suggested the American people believed the federal government was not adequately dealing with the situation in the Gulf, President Obama announced in May that he would triple oil spill response resources. That decision, one report says, may have actually hindered the government’s response to the spill.

According to the report, the Obama directive may have confused the spill response by throwing more manpower at an already complicated operation.

“Responders noted that “tripling” taxed the Coast Guard’s ability to respond and to conduct its other missions and may not have been the most effective use of a thin-spread force in a lengthy campaign,” the report says. “Tripling, or at least the arguable overreaction to the public perception of a slow response, resulted in resources being thrown at the spill in general rather than being targeted in an efficient way.”

The reports also raise significant questions about the process the government used to determine just how much oil was leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. One report says BP’s initial estimate that 1,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking out of the well was essentially pulled out of thin air.

“Neither the Coast Guard nor BP divulged the data or methodology behind this estimate,” the report says. “Based on the information we have to date, it appears the figure came from BP without supporting documentation.”

What’s more, when the Coast Guard later upped the estimate to 5,000 barrels per day days, it based that figure on an unsolicited letter from a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who had no expertise in making such estimates.

Despite these estimates, government officials responded to the spill based on worst-case-scenario flow rates. Those estimates changed over time, but were significantly higher than the figures the Coast Guard gave to the public.

The oil spill commission’s report suggests that the federal government kept key information from the public in the weeks after the spill, with the White House in at least one case rejecting a request by government scientists to reveal to the public worst-case-scenario flow rate data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a key agency involved in the spill response, wanted to release some of the worst-case discharge figures in the weeks after the spill but the White House Office of Management and Budget denied its request.

The lack of information could have fueled distrust of the government’s response to the spill. At the same time, the response “may have benefited from a greater sense of urgency” in the first days after the spill, which could have come about if the worst-case scenarios were released publicly, the report says.

The White House, in a statement e-mailed to reporters today, said it did release information about the worst-case-scenario flow rate. In May, administration officials said the worst-case scenario could be a release of more than 100,000 barrels a day.

“The federal government response was full force and immediate, and the response focused on state and local plans and evolved when needed,” the White House statement said.

The reports also take aim at the administration’s so-called “Oil Budget,” a much-criticized August assessment of the spill put together by the Obama administration. The document was only meant to be used for “operational” purposes, according to the report, not as a public document that would lay out the “fate of oil” in the Gulf, as the Obama administration would later frame it.

The Oil Budget, which was put together by the Coast Guard’s Oil Budget Calculator Science and Engineering Team, was released on Aug. 4. It gave the first estimate of the amount of oil that spilled into the Gulf, about 4.9 million barrels. But it also obscured what had happened to the oil that spilled into the Gulf by failing to take into account biodegradation — or as the commission’s report says, “the exact amounts of remaining, dissolved, and dispersed oil.”

The spill commission’s report places much of the blame for mischaracterizations of the Oil Budget on White House climate and energy policy coordinator Carol Browner, who exaggerated the Oil Budget’s findings in television interviews. “Ms. Browner did not describe the Oil Budget as an operational tool designed to assist responders,” the report says. “Instead, some of her statements presented the budget as a scientific assessment of how much of the oil was ‘gone.’”

The Oil Budget was not peer reviewed, the report finds. “The criticism that the Oil Budget was not a peer-reviewed scientific report was accurate. Even the independent scientists that were described as peer reviewers were critical of the report and the way it was presented,” the report says.

While scientists were consulted on the Oil Budget, those same scientists took issue with the way the document was characterized by the administration in interviews with oil spill commission staff. Still, the spill commission’s report was not able to analyze the assumptions used in the Oil Budget because the Obama administration refuses to make them public until it completes a comprehensive report on the spill this month.

Another report focuses on the administration’s use of chemical dispersants to break up oil and keep it from hitting shore. The federal government was not prepared to determine how chemical dispersants should be used to break up oil in the event of a massive oil spill, a draft report released today by the the national oil spill commission says.

According to the report, the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA — two federal agencies that played a major role in the oil spill response — never considered the possibility that a major spill would require such large quantities of dispersant. Though the spill was unprecedented, the oil spill commission does not excuse EPA’s lack of preparation. “The oil and gas industry has been extracting high volumes of oil from reservoirs in the Gulf for twenty years,” the report says. “This is not a new, unanticipated development. Nor is deepwater drilling.”

The report says it is “too early to assess” whether the Obama administration made the right choice in using such massive amounts of chemical dispersant. But the report does lay out a number of “uncertainties” about the benefits of dispersant use, including its impact on marine life.

The draft reports, released today, were put together by staff for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. The reports, according to the commission, are “preliminary, subject to change and do not necessarily reflect the views either of the commission as a whole or any of its members.” The reports are based in part on confidential interviews with key players in the oil spill response.