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3.6 Nourbakhsh. The Kuwait Oil Fires: an Environmental Disaster
3.6 Nourbakhsh. The Kuwait Oil Fires: an Environmental Disaster 31
Figure 3: Raw Data From An Actual Image
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Once we have calibrated our frames to our specific camera, we are ready to render our final image. To do this, we first stack all of our frames and run them through an image subtraction software program, allowing us to take out any inconsistencies in our data from things such as atmospheric pressure and temperature deviations giving us a super crisp calibrated image.
Once we have calibrated and stacked our image, we are given some artistic freedom. Depending on the software you use, there are many different functions you can use to make your final image more aesthetically appealing (see figure 4).
Figure 4: Final image
Conclusion
While astrophotography can seem like a very technical and scientific process, it can also be viewed as an artistic one. As our technology has become more advanced, astronomers have relied less on astrophotography as a form of data collection. Due to this, astrophotography has shifted from a strictly scientific endeavor to one in which science and art mesh. I think that there is an inherent beauty found in the cosmos, and what makes it beautiful is its distance and invisibility from us. Our primative biology was never meant to travel to space or see these nebulas and galaxies thousands of light years away, but through technology and science we are able to explore realms not even thought to exist. Perhaps this image does not contribute to the furthering of our scientific knowledge, but I think it has vast implications on the human psyche. It causes us to ask new questions and most importantly wonder. When I look at this image, I like to think that maybe around one of those trillion stars there is a planet, and on this planet there are billions of creatures such as ourselves. Maybe one day we will realize the reality of this fantasy, and our understanding of our place in the universe will forever be changed.
References [1] Erica Fahr Campbell. “The First Photograph Of The Moon”. In: Time (Dec. 2013). URL: https:// time.com/3805947/the- first- photographof- the- moon/ (cited on page 29). [2] Berta Margalef-Bentabol et al. “Observations of the initial formation and evolution of spiral galaxies at 1 < z < 3 in the CANDELS fields”. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 511.1 (Mar. 2022), pages 1502–1517. DOI: 10 . 1093 / mnras / stac080. arXiv: 2201 . 06334 [astro-ph.GA] (cited on page 29). [3] NASA. Hubble Space Telescope Images. Edited by Karl Hille. URL: https : / / www . nasa . gov / mission _ pages / hubble / multimedia / index . html (cited on page 29). [4] Riccardo Schiavi et al. “Future merger of the Milky Way with the Andromeda galaxy and the fate of their supermassive black holes”. In: Astronomy & Astrophysics 642, A30 (Oct. 2020), A30. DOI: 10.1051/0004- 6361/202038674. arXiv: 2102. 10938 [astro-ph.GA] (cited on page 29). [5] “The Daguerreotype Medium”. In: Daguerreotypes. Library Of Congress. URL: https://www. loc . gov / collections / daguerreotypes / articles- and- essays/the- daguerreotypemedium/ (cited on page 29). [6] Mike Wall. “Earth Day At 50: How Apollo 8’S ‘Earthrise’ photo helped spark the first celebration”. In: Space (Apr. 2020). URL: https://www. space . com / earthrise - image - apollo - 8 earth - day - 50th - anniversary . html (cited on page 29).
By Mitra Nourbakhsh ’22
In January 1991, Iraqi forces were in the midst of a rushed retreat from Kuwait at the end of the Arabian Gulf War. Embarrassed by Iraq’s defeat at the hands of a US-led coalition, Saddam Hussein ordered his armies to carry out one last act of war: they set on fire over 700 of Kuwait’s oil wells. Hussein hoped to inflict a blow on Kuwait’s oil production infrastructure, a huge money maker for the country and the cause of the Arabian Gulf War, and his plan worked almost too well.
The wells blazed, columns of toxic smoke blocked
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the sunlight, and oil leaked into the desert and the Persian Gulf. International firefighting crews could not be sent into the area until after the war because it was too dangerous. To complicate matters, when firefighters arrived they discovered that there were land mines around the oil wells that had to be removed before they could actually begin firefighting. In the end, the fires burned for ten months, and they were finally put out at a cost of $1.5 billion to Kuwait. Rated in 2010 as the third worst environmental disaster in history, the Kuwait Oil Fires caused devastation and disruption to the desert ecosystem. 11 million barrels of crude oil poured into the Persian Gulf, some of which ended up on the beaches of Iran, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. 25 to 40 million barrels were spread across the desert, creating hundreds of oil lakes (see Fig. 1), destroying fragile habitats and endangering many species (see Fig. 2). The CO2 emissions from the burning oil were about 130 million tons. These changes, along with soot in the air, affected the weather: temperatures in Kuwait and neighboring countries were about 10 degrees Celsius lower than in a regular year. In addition, seawater temperatures dropped 5-8 degrees Celsius, a change that was more devastating to fish and prawns than the oil itself. The Kuwait oil fires created a far-reaching environmental catastrophe that has persisted to this day.
The effects of these oil fires on the biodiversity of marine and land ecosystems have been disastrous. In Saudi Arabia, many of the mangroves were damaged by the oil, killing between 50 and 90 percent of the fauna: crabs, amphipods, and mollusks. Seabirds had oiled feathers and ingested the oil when preening; most birds were contaminated by the oil. About 100,000 waders were directly killed by the oil fire disaster. 80% of Kuwait’s livestock died after inhaling the noxious smoke. Dugongs and dolphins were found dead on beaches. Plant life was equally affected, as exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons damaged plant growth and seed germination and soil clogged by oil prevented plants from accessing light, water and nutrients. Species that relied on that vegetation became noticeably absent, the habitat’s carrying capacity decreasing without sufficient food sources.
Today, the desert is still contaminated, and many of the species affected are still suffering 30 years later. 90% of the unprotected contaminated soil is still in the environment, the desert still marred by hardened black oil sludge. There have been scores of bioremediation efforts, and there is plenty of money available from the UN to make it happen, but there have been bureaucratic delays and issues with the efficacy or remediation. As of June 2021, just 10% of contaminated soil had been removed and buried in landfills, as was the original method of remediation. It doesn’t help that, as NASA says,“the sand and gravel on the land’s surface combined with oil and soot to form a layer of hardened ‘tarcrete’ over almost 5 percent of the country’s area,” which makes the oil extremely hard to remove. Over concerns of intensifying the problem later on with that method, bioremediation efforts of using microorganisms to break down and decay hydrocarbons have been employed. There have also been efforts to use landfarming, meaning that contaminated soil is tilled periodically and controlled in terms of moisture and pH to degrade contaminants. Still, due to the “high presence of petroleum hydrocarbons and the concentration of salt content in Kuwait’s contaminated soil” [4] there is no guarantee that these efforts will pay off. Still, efforts by Kuwait to remedy the damage done by the fires are ongoing and have widespread international support.
Figure 1: Kuwait Oil Fires
From the drilling of oil wells, to the war, to Saddam Hussein’s decision to carry out one last vengeful act, the fires were unnecessary, avoidable, and manmade; it is just one example of the many consequences of war. The disastrous effects have persisted to this day, and will continue to be seen for years to come. The cost in terms of plant and animal life is just unfathomable; numbers cannot truly encapsulate how devastating the fires were for the ecosystem, and the cost in human life and health is also significant. What was once a beautiful desert has been permanently damaged. Kuwait will never again be as pristine as it once was.
