Objectives
Improving oil spill modelling through the use and development of state of the art models for oil and wave interactions
Background
The drift currents and mixing is important for the dispersion and advection of oil in the ocean. However, it is difficult to model ocean currents correct in space and time due to the energetic eddies in the ocean. In an existing NFR project (BioWave) we develop a new model system that couples wave drift and ocean currents in a natural way and is thus able to use high quality forecast of the wave field, and the associated wave drift, to improve drift calculations in the ocean. In this proposal (Oil-Wave) we aim at adapting this new model system to include wave-oil interaction (which are ignored in BioWave) to produces a more reliable system for forecasting oil drift. The main themes of the present proposal are
- to improve the upper ocean mixing scheme
- improve parameterizations of small scale wave-oil interaction
- validate the new system with observations from proposed field investigations, and from documented oil spill accidents
Financing
- The Research Council of Norway, Program PETROMAX
Oilwave started 2011 and ends 2013