NASA says new radar will improve oil spill cleanups

October 29, 2012

PASADENA, California -- When oil is spreading over the sea from an accident such as 2010's BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, a key to quick cleanup is classifying the spill. Is it thick enough to threaten the environment now, or is it a thin sheen that means resources can be deployed somewhere else first?

Today, oil spills are classified visually by trained observers, but the effectiveness of that method is limited by the skill of those observers and their availability. If the experts aren't on-site, or the spill is too widespread, valuable time can be lost.

NASA says researchers in California have developed a method to use specialized 3-D imaging radar to do those classifications quickly. And because the radar can be mounted on a plane, it can be deployed quickly and stay in place over the spill longer.

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