Modelling the mass exchange dynamics of oceanic surface and subsurface oil. (September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ramírez, Jorge; Moghimi, Saeed; Restrepo, Juan M.; Venkataramani, Shankar
• Is Part Of: Ocean modelling. Volume 129(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 12
• Publication Date: 2018-09
• Subjects: Oil spill -- Oil fate model -- Oil entrainment -- Ocean oil transport -- Ocean pollution; Oceanography -- Periodicals; Océanographie -- Périodiques; Oceanography; Periodicals; 551.46
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ocemod.2018.06.004
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1463-5003

Abstract

Highlights: We propose a model for buoyant dynamics of surface and subsurface oil. The model accounts for mass exchanges in an Eulerian oil-fate model. The Eulerian model is specialized to shallow water conditions. It takes into account microscale dynamics, buoyancy and turbulence. Microdynamics are taken into account but not resolved. Abstract: We propose a time dependent Eulerian model for sea surface entrainment, buoyancy transport and droplet dynamics of ocean oil. The model captures the microscale vertical oil mass exchanges in the neighborhood of the sea surface. This model is in turn part of an oil fate model designed to capture oil dynamics at large spatio-temporal scales typical of environmental studies. The adiabatic dynamics of the droplets are upscaled by a combination of filtering and stochastic parametrization. The upscaling addresses the computational burden of resolving the microscale. The upscaled droplet dynamics are tested against data and the mass exchange mechanism is incorporated into a nearshore oil transport model in order to highlight the importance of incorporating vertical mass exchanges and droplet distribution dynamics in predicting the distributing of shoaling oil.