FROM BLOWOUT TO BEACH: AN INTEGRATED MODELING APPROACH
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ABSTRACTAs part of the response to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, we have been funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to construct a nested model suite that can follow an oil particle from its first release to its arrival on a shoreline, taking into account natural rates of mixing and degradation of the oil components. The model suite incorporates (at increasing levels of resolution) a coupled ocean-atmosphere model of the full Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic Ocean, a deep Gulf of Mexico model, a regional model of the Texas-Louisiana shelf, a 3D, non-hydrostatic bay model, a 3D Navier-Stokes model of the spill plume, and a particle tracking and transformation model for dispersed and dissolved oil and gas fate and transport integrated within the full flow domain. The models are supported by a series of laboratory and field experiments, including studies of single droplets, with and without dispersant, plumes, a deep-sea tracer release experiment and bubble releases to simulate an underwater blowout. The laboratory experiments will improve modeling of small-scale, near-field processes such as bubble and droplet formation, dissolution, droplet-turbulence interaction, and evaporation and dispersion at the air-sea interface. We show how the models are linked and how we are making progress towards the complete nested model suite, which will be available for use in future spills.
