Modelling the long-term evolution of worst-case Arctic oil spills

MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN

卷:116

Article

Blanken, Hauke¹  Tremblay, Louis Bruno²  Gaskin, Susan¹  Slavin, Alexander² 

[1] McGill Univ, Dept Civil Engn & Appl Mech, 817 Sherbrooke St West, Montreal, PQ H3A 0C3, Canada

[2] McGill Univ, Dept Atmospher & Ocean Sci, 805 Sherbrooke St West, Montreal, PQ H3A 0B9, Canada

关键词: Oilspill;    Trajectory;    Arctic;    Risk;    Ice-ocean;    Sea-ice;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.12.070

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

We present worst-case assessments of contamination in sea ice and surface waters resulting from hypothetical well blowout oil spills at ten sites in the Arctic Ocean basin. Spill extents are estimated by considering Eulerian passive tracers in the surface ocean of the MlTgcm (a hydrostatic, coupled ice-ocean model). Oil in sea ice, and contamination resulting from melting of oiled ice, is tracked using an offline Lagrangian scheme. Spills are initialized on November 1st 1980-2010 and tracked for one year. An average spill was transported 1100 km and potentially affected 1.1 million km(2). The direction and magnitude of simulated oil trajectories are consistent with known large-scale current and sea ice circulation patterns, and trajectories frequently cross international boundaries. The simulated trajectories of oil in sea ice match observed ice drift trajectories well. During the winter oil transport by drifting sea ice is more significant than transport with surface currents. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free