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Trajectory Ensembling of Oil Drift Patterns to Manage Uncertainty in Spill Release
DescriptionAuthors : SJ Prasad* TM Balakrishnan Nair and Sudheer Joseph
Abstract
MVX press vessel caught fire off Srilanka on May 20, 2021, and started sinking too. It had approximately 378 tons of oil on board. It was said to carry 1486 containers. Oil leaks were not reported during the sink of the vessel, rather than the plastic pellets. As per the request from Indian Coast Guard, oil drift patterns were generated for a period of seven days from 05-11 June 2023 using a Lagrangian oil spill trajectory model, General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment (GNOME) as there was an uncertainty in spill release time. The trajectory model was forced using high resolution ocean currents and winds from European Centre for Medium Weather range Forecast (ECMWF). The oil drift patterns were ensembled using mean and aggregation operators and they were compared with that of the oil slick signatures obtained from the SAR data on 08 June 2022. It was noticed after the comparison that the observed location of oil particles was found within the zone of trajectories ensembled.
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This paper explains the method of handling uncertainty in the spill release time using the technique of trajectory ensembling. The ensemble members of the trajectories give the positions of the oil particles and their landing locations irrespective of the spill release time. The future scope of this research extends in generating trajectories using the spatial ensembling of the meteorological and ocean forcings.
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Keywords : Trajectories; ensembling; oil drifts; mean; aggregation.
Event Type
Poster
TimeMonday, May 13th5:00pm - 6:00pm CDT
LocationExhibit Hall G
Tags
Preparedness
Prevention
Remediation
Response
Restoration