Chapter 11
Applications of an Oil Drift and Fate Model
for Fairway Design
Jens Murawski and Jacob Woge Nielsen
Abstract Pollutants at sea undergo weathering related changes in the composition
and are transported by winds, waves and currents. Methods are needed to study the
impact of changing weather and ocean conditions on oil chemistry and physics and
to estimate all the driving forces of oil transport at sea. The present study highlights
the potential of operational oil drift and fate models for the analysis of systematic
drift patterns that has been prevented so far by their numerical complexity. A large
number of drift simulations are performed to cover a three years period 1992–1994,
with 8 releases per month on a grid of 528 release positions in the Gulf of Finland. Although sparse in resolution, the results are still characteristic. Large-scale
wind induced drift has been found to dominate the surface transport during windy
seasons, and to be of similar magnitude as the current drift during calm seasons.
Currents dominate the subsurface transport regime, and become more and more significant at later stages of the spill development, when more and more oil droplets
are mixed down by waves. To estimate the combined effects of oil transport and oil
weathering, seasonal drift patterns are analysed and alternative fairway designs are
derived using a Monte Carlo technique. The quality of the designs is evaluated under
environmental and economical viewpoints using professional ship routing software.
We demonstrate that it is possible to find balanced solutions that are economically
beneficial and that follow green goals like low fuel consumption and reduced risk
for coastal oil pollution. Wave-driven advection of oil spills has been studied for the
one-year period of 1992, to cover a seasonal cycle. It has been found to impact oil
propagation in areas where the wave field exhibits strong gradients, e.g., at locations
with depth gradients and in the wind shadow of islands.
J. Murawski (B) · J. Woge Nielsen
Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen E, Denmark
e-mail: jmu@dmi.dk
J. Woge Nielsen
e-mail: jw@dmi.dk
T. Soomere, E. Quak (eds.), Preventive Methods for Coastal Protection,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-00440-2_11,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
367
Applications of an Oil Drift and Fate Model
for Fairway Design
Jens Murawski and Jacob Woge Nielsen
Abstract Pollutants at sea undergo weathering related changes in the composition
and are transported by winds, waves and currents. Methods are needed to study the
impact of changing weather and ocean conditions on oil chemistry and physics and
to estimate all the driving forces of oil transport at sea. The present study highlights
the potential of operational oil drift and fate models for the analysis of systematic
drift patterns that has been prevented so far by their numerical complexity. A large
number of drift simulations are performed to cover a three years period 1992–1994,
with 8 releases per month on a grid of 528 release positions in the Gulf of Finland. Although sparse in resolution, the results are still characteristic. Large-scale
wind induced drift has been found to dominate the surface transport during windy
seasons, and to be of similar magnitude as the current drift during calm seasons.
Currents dominate the subsurface transport regime, and become more and more significant at later stages of the spill development, when more and more oil droplets
are mixed down by waves. To estimate the combined effects of oil transport and oil
weathering, seasonal drift patterns are analysed and alternative fairway designs are
derived using a Monte Carlo technique. The quality of the designs is evaluated under
environmental and economical viewpoints using professional ship routing software.
We demonstrate that it is possible to find balanced solutions that are economically
beneficial and that follow green goals like low fuel consumption and reduced risk
for coastal oil pollution. Wave-driven advection of oil spills has been studied for the
one-year period of 1992, to cover a seasonal cycle. It has been found to impact oil
propagation in areas where the wave field exhibits strong gradients, e.g., at locations
with depth gradients and in the wind shadow of islands.
J. Murawski (B) · J. Woge Nielsen
Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen E, Denmark
e-mail: jmu@dmi.dk
J. Woge Nielsen
e-mail: jw@dmi.dk
T. Soomere, E. Quak (eds.), Preventive Methods for Coastal Protection,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-00440-2_11,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
367