TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring oil residence time with GPS-drifters, satellites, and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
AU - Garcia-Pineda, Oscar
AU - Androulidakis, Yannis
AU - Le Hénaff, Matthieu
AU - Kourafalou, Villy
AU - Hole, Lars R.
AU - Kang, Hee Sook
AU - Staples, Gordon
AU - Ramirez, Ellen
AU - DiPinto, Lisa
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (award GOMA 23160700) and in part by grants from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Data acquired during the GOMRI research cruises are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org (https://doi.org/10.7266/N7M9072W). Matthieu Le H?naff received partial support for this work from the base funds of the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. We would like to acknowledge the feedback from an anonymous reviewer that helped us to improve our work presented on this manuscript.
Funding Information:
This study was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (award GOMA 23160700 ) and in part by grants from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ; Data acquired during the GOMRI research cruises are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org ( https://doi.org/10.7266/N7M9072W ). Matthieu Le Hénaff received partial support for this work from the base funds of the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. We would like to acknowledge the feedback from an anonymous reviewer that helped us to improve our work presented on this manuscript.
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - As oil production worldwide continues to increase, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, marine oil spill preparedness relies on deeper understanding of surface oil spill transport science. This paper describes experiments carried out on a chronic release of crude oil and aims to understand the residence time of oil slicks using a combination of remote sensing platforms and GPS tracked drifters. From April 2017 to August 2018, we performed multiple synchronized deployments of drogued and un-drogued drifters to monitor the life time (residence time) of the surface oil slicks originated from the MC20 spill site, located close to the Mississippi Delta. The hydrodynamic design of the two types of drifters allowed us to compare their performance differences. We found the un-drogued drifter to be more appropriate to measure the speed of oil transport. Drifter deployments under various wind conditions show that stronger winds lead to reduce the length of the slick, presumably because of an increase in the evaporation rate and entrainment of oil in the water produced by wave action. We have calculated the residence time of oil slicks at MC20 site to be between 4 and 28 h, with average wind amplitude between 3.8 and 8.8 m/s. These results demonstrate an inverse linear relationship between wind strength and residence time of the oil, and the average residence time of the oil from MC20 is 14.9 h.
AB - As oil production worldwide continues to increase, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, marine oil spill preparedness relies on deeper understanding of surface oil spill transport science. This paper describes experiments carried out on a chronic release of crude oil and aims to understand the residence time of oil slicks using a combination of remote sensing platforms and GPS tracked drifters. From April 2017 to August 2018, we performed multiple synchronized deployments of drogued and un-drogued drifters to monitor the life time (residence time) of the surface oil slicks originated from the MC20 spill site, located close to the Mississippi Delta. The hydrodynamic design of the two types of drifters allowed us to compare their performance differences. We found the un-drogued drifter to be more appropriate to measure the speed of oil transport. Drifter deployments under various wind conditions show that stronger winds lead to reduce the length of the slick, presumably because of an increase in the evaporation rate and entrainment of oil in the water produced by wave action. We have calculated the residence time of oil slicks at MC20 site to be between 4 and 28 h, with average wind amplitude between 3.8 and 8.8 m/s. These results demonstrate an inverse linear relationship between wind strength and residence time of the oil, and the average residence time of the oil from MC20 is 14.9 h.
KW - Drifters
KW - Satellite remote sensing
KW - UAS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075370386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85075370386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110644
DO - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110644
M3 - Article
C2 - 31733903
AN - SCOPUS:85075370386
VL - 150
JO - Marine Pollution Bulletin
JF - Marine Pollution Bulletin
SN - 0025-326X
M1 - 110644
ER -
