The DeepWater Horizon Oil Slick: Simulations of River Front Effects and Oil Droplet Size Distribution

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

Matthieu Le Hénaff¹  Cecilie Wettre²  LarsRobert Hole²  Knut-Frode Dagestad²  Johannes Röhrs²  Heesook Kang³  Yannis Androulidakis³  VassilikiH. Kourafalou³  Oscar Garcia-Pineda⁴ 

[1] Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA;Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Allegt. 70, 5007 Bergen, Norway;Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA;WaterMapping, Gulf Breeze, FL 32563, USA;

关键词: HYCOM;    OpenDrift;    OpenOil;    oil spill;    modeling;    simulations;    satellite;    observations;    river fronts;    DeepWater Horizon;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jmse7100329

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The effect of river fronts on oil slick transport has been shown using high resolution forcing models and a fully fledged oil drift model, OpenOil. The model was used to simulate two periods of the 2010 DeepWater Horizon oil spill. Metocean forcing data were taken from the data-assimilative GoM-HYCOM 1/50° ocean model with realistic daily river input and global forecast products of wind and wave parameters from ECMWF. The simulations were initialized from satellite observations of the surface oil patch. The effect of using a newly developed parameterization for oil droplet size distribution was studied and compared to a traditional algorithm. Although the algorithms provide different distributions for a single wave breaking event, it was found that the net difference after long simulations is negligible, indicating that the outcome is robust regarding the choice of parameterization. The effect of removing the river outflow was investigated to showcase effects of river induced fronts on oil spreading. A consistent effect on the amount and location of stranded oil and a considerable impact on the location of the surface oil patch were found. During a period with large river outflow (20−27 May 2010), the total amount of stranded oil is reduced by about 50% in the simulation with no river input. The results compare well with satellite observations of the surface oil patch after simulating the surface oil patch drift for 7−8 days.

【 授权许可】

Unknown