Reports of Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University No.
117 (123 – 126) September 1999
123
Simulation of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill using
Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
Youngjin CHOI *1, Keiko TAKAHASHI *1, Akihisa ABE *2, Shigeru NISHIO*2, and Akira SOU*2
E-mail of corresponding author: [email protected]
(Received July 30, 2012)
Abstract
The Deepwater Horizon accident discharged a staggering amount of oil (about 780,000 Kl) into the Gulf of
Mexico. In other forecast simulations based on the ocean-only models, spilled oil reach the Atlantic Ocean by the
Gulf Stream. In this study, we simulated 3-dimensional movement of oils using the real-time oceanic and
atmospheric conditions obtained by the coupled MSSG (Multi-Scale Simulator for the Geoenvironment) model. Our
simulation show that the amounts of oil discharge into the Atlantic is very limited due to the trade winds. The
atmospheric coupling to the ocean model is essential in the forecast simulation of spilled oils.
Key words : Oil Spill Simulation, General Circulation Model, Gulf of Mexico
1. Introduction established as an effective method because spilled oils in
the ocean are treated as passive tracer.
The Deepwater Horizon (Hereafter DH) oil spill,
caused by a drilling rig explosion on 20 April 2010, is
the largest oil spill on the Earth. It had released about
780,000 kl of crude oil from a depth of 1600 m.
Generally, oil-spill modelling in the ocean involves
two models: a hydrodynamic model and an oil transport
model. Since the oil spill in the ocean is very
complicated process of winds, ocean currents and oils’
random movements, modeler should consider about the
characteristics of oceanic and atmospheric conditions
and general circulation models. Most of oil-spill
accidents are occurred in the coastal seaway or oil tanks
around the coast and many of oil-spill simulation
researches used two dimensional ocean circulation
model for the hydrodynamic model 1), 2), or sigma Fig.1 Distribution of the spilled oil from the DH,
coordinate models which is not suitable for the open simulated by NCAR. Light gray shaded indicates oils in
ocean circulation with steep topographic slopes 3), 4). the ocean surface.
Choi et al. 5) showed that high resolution 3-dimensional
z-coordinate atmosphere and ocean model is effective The National Center for Atmospheric Research
for accurate simulation of oil-spill in open ocean. For the (NCAR), which is funded by the US government,
transport model, a Lagrangian particle-tracking model conducted a supercomputer simulation about the DH oil
which is totally free from the numerical diffusion is spill with 3-dimensional z-coordinate ocean general
*1 Earth Simulator Center, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth circulation model (OGCM) 6)(Fig.1). They suggested that
Science and Technology Gulf crude oil could discharge into the North Atlantic in
*2 Graduate School of Maritime Science, Kobe University about 120 days. Once the oil in the uppermost ocean has
124 Choi et al : Simulation of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill using Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
become entrained into the LC, it is likely to reach The initial temperature and salinity distributions
Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks. It can then move were generated using a combination of the OFES 1/10 o
north as far as about Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with climatological product 9), calculated in the JAMSTEC.
the Gulf Stream, before turning east. Each component is coupled after spun up for 2
On the other hand, another possible spread scenario years and 10 years for the atmospheric and ocean
of the Gulf crude oil over one year was studied by a components, respectively. Coupled simulation was
team of researchers from the University of Hawaii. They carried out for 1 year from April 20th, 2009.
used the oceanic parameters conducted with the OFES
(OGCM for the Earth Simulator) which is provided by
Japan Agency for Marine–Earth Science and Technology
(JAMSTEC). They also indicated that the oil enters the
LC and the GS, and about 150,000 kl of crude oils are
transported through the Straits of Florida and finally into
the North Atlantic after about 240 days 7). However, the
previous studies did not considered about the effect of
wind on the spilled oils in the ocean surface.
In this study, we investigate the DH oil spill by
numerical simulation with high resolution atmosphere
and ocean general circulation model. Numerical models
are well established in simulating atmosphere and ocean
circulations in the regional domain for the GOM. The
particle tracking oil spill model is described, followed
by applications for the DH accident.
Fig.2 Domain and Topography (ETOPO5) for the GCM
simulation
2. Simulation System
2.2 Simulation results
2.1 Atmosphere-ocean model
The monthly mean surface current field in April is
The Multi-Scale Simulator for the
shown in Fig.2. The North Equatorial Current and the
Geo-environment (MSSG) 8) is used for the regional
Gulf Stream (GS) are well reproduced. The separation of
numerical simulation, using the Earth-Simulator II (ES2)
the GS around the coast at Cape Hatteras is reasonably
provided in JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth
simulated.
Science and Technology). Both atmospheric and oceanic
components are developed based upon the primitive
equations.
An atmospheric component of MSSG (MSSG_A) is
3-dimensional non-hydrostatic global and regional
atmosphere circulation model. It compromised of fully
compressive flux form, Smagorinsky-Lilly type
parameterizations for sub-grid scale mixing. In the ocean
component (MSSG_O), incompressible and hydrostatic
equations with the Boussinesq approximation are
adopted.
In both the atmospheric and oceanic components,
Arakawa-C grid is used. The atmospheric component
utilizes the terrain following vertical coordinate, while
the ocean component uses the z-coordinate system for
the vertical direction.
In this study, we used 15km resolution horizontal Fig.3 Surface current velocity from the MSSG_O
grid, covering North Atlantic (65 oN～10o S,
o o
100 W～20 E, Fig.1). For vertical layer, MSSG_A used The ocean circulation in the GOM is characterized
32 layers varying from 100 m to 30 km, while MSSG_O by three features like below:
used 26 layers varying from 20 m to 5000 m.
Reports of Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University No.117 September 1999 125
1) The Loop Current (LC) that flows northward the 3% of wind velocities at 10 m above the water
between Cuba and the Yucatan peninsula, moves north surface 11), respectively.
into the GOM, loops east and south before exiting to the The advection due to turbulent diffusion Lrandom is
east through the Florida Straits and joining the GS. computed by the random walk method for Gaussian
2) The anti-cyclonic warm eddy detached from the “spillets” as
LC. Lrandom R 6D / t , (2)
3) Large stationary eddy in the west of the GOM.
where R is the random number between –1 and 1. The
Those three features are well reproduced in our
empirical horizontal diffusivity coefficient D is taken as
simulation (Fig.2). In the simulation results, the
10 m2/s 12). For the vertical direction, diffusivity is 1/10
horizontal velocity of the GS is up to 15 cm/s above 500
of horizontal value.
m depth, under which the velocities are only about 0~5
The differential equations were solved using a
cm/s.
second order Runge–Kutta (R-K) algorithm13) with a
Fig.3 shows the 10-meter wind velocity field above
time–step of 60 min, since time–centering in the method
ocean in April. The trade winds blow westward in the
is approximately achieved by anticipating an average
tropics, and the wind above 30o N blows southwesterly
force acting between two successive time steps. For
by the effect of the Westerlies which blow eastward at
Lagrangian equation the usual 2nd order R-K algorithm
mid-latitudes. It should be noted that the wind velocities
gives
in the GOM is relatively weak compared to the
Caribbean Sea. xn*1 / 2 xn vn t / 2 , xn1 xn vn*1/2t . (3)
Fig.4 10m wind velocity on ocean surface from the
MSSG_A
3. Oil-Spill Simulation Results
The particle tracking (Lagrangian) approach has
been adopted for the oil-spill simulation, using the three-
dimensional results from the MSSG model simulation.
In the particle tracking method, a spill is considered
to be represented by many small discrete quantities, or
particles, rather than as a continuous oil body 10). The Fig.5 Simulation results of the DH oil spill for CASE1
method naturally allows advection and diffusion to be (Left) and CASE2 (right), respectively.
separately dealt with. Advection of a particle can be
calculated by the following simple equation We conducted two case of oil-spill simulation:
L (U current U wind )t Lrandom , (1) CASE1 uses only ocean currents for the advection
where L is the moving distance of a particle, Ucurrent is velocity, while CASE2 uses both atmospheric and ocean
the ocean current velocity at the sea surface, and Uwind is simulation results. Fig.5 shows the comparison of the
126 Choi et al : Simulation of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill using Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
simulation results of CASE1 (left) and CASE2 (right). In winds is effective in the ashore of spilled oils.
CASE1, the ocean current is the only external velocity Compared with the satellite-observed surface oil
for the Lagrangian equation, and consequently, the locations (Fig.7) 14), observations show that a lot of oils
movements of the oils determined by the ocean current. drifted ashore from Florida to Louisiana, which is
After 30 days from the spill, oil moves mainly into similar with CASE2. However, In CASE1, oils are
southerly, under the effect of ocean currents. After 90 hardly drifted ashore. Note that the oil distributions in
days, the front edge of the simulated oil slick flows into the southern regions of DH oil spill source, in Fig.6, is
the LC after 90 days, and they reach Florida’s Atlantic similar with neither CASE2 nor CASE1, because of
coast in 120 days. The oil slicks then move northerly as artificial actions by humans – fencing, filtering, and
far as about Cape Hatteras with the GS, before turning collecting, etc.
east. In the simulations by NCAR and University of
Hawaii, it takes about 120 days and 240 days for the oils
to reach the North Atlantic. CASE1 shows 180 days to
reach the North Atlantic, which agrees with previous
studies. On the other hand, CASE2 shows different
trajectories from CASE1. Most of the oils are trapped
and mooring in the GOM, and very limited oils are
passed through the Strait of Florida.
Fig.7 Cumulative Oil Slick Footprint of the DH oil spill,
April 25 - July 16, 2010
4. Summary and Conclusion
We conducted oil spill simulation using a general
atmosphere and ocean circulation model. The realistic
wind and ocean current fields are reproduced by general
circulation models. Also, three-dimensional Lagrangian
particle tracking method is applied for the oil spill
Fig.6 Rose diagrams for the ocean currents and winds simulations of CASE1 and CASE2. CASE1 shows
through the Florida Strait for 6 months after the DH oil similar distributions with previous studies, which
spill. indicates the ocean current field reproduced in this study
is well agreed with high resolution models of NCAR and
The directions of ocean currents and winds through JAMSTEC.
the Florida Strait are illustrated by rose diagrams in After the DH oil spill accident, many scientists are
Fig.6. The ocean currents are apparently directed to the concerned about the discharge of oils into the LC, which
east-northeast direction, which indicates the outflow of could transport oils to the North Atlantic. However, our
the LC into the GS. On the other hand, the rose diagram results indicate that the oil movements are largely
for the winds through the Florida Strait clearly indicates influenced by wind drift, and spilled oils hardly
easterly winds. It should be noted that the direction of discharge into the North Atlantic, even if the oils flow
the winds in the rose diagram is shifted 30 o to the right into the LC.
due to the Ekman effect. The rose diagrams suggest that Further advances will require the 3-dimensional
the easterly blow trade winds keep out the outflow of the oil-spill model which includes the chemical changes
oil slicks into the GOM. In CASE2, The oils are widely such as emulsion, dissolution, and deposition on the
drifted ashore from the Florida to Louisiana (about 1000 bottom sediments.
km), which is quite different from CASE1. The
combination of west-northwestward forcing due to the
Reports of Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University No.117 September 1999 127
Acknowledgement at Water Surface, 407-418(2010)6.
6) http://www2.ucar.edu/news/ocean-currents-likely-to
This study was conducted as part of “The research for -carry-oil-spill-along-atlantic-coast
international marine transport system integrating three– 7) http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/soest_web/soest.gulf20
principles of transport” project supported by MEXT 10_longterm.htm
(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and 8) K. Takahashi, Proceedings of the Twelfth ECMWF
Technology of Japan). The QuikSCAT wind data for this workshop, 50-62(2005).
study have been obtained from the NASA/NOAA 9) Y. Masumoto, H. Sasaki, T. Kagimoto, N. Komori,
sponsored data system. The authors express their thanks A. Ishida, Y. Sasai, T. Miyama, T. Motoi, H.
for their supports and contributions. Mitsudera, K. Takahashi, H. Sakuma and T.
Yamagata, J. of the Earth Simulator, 35-56 (2004).
References 10) M. Reed, O. Johansen, P.J. Brandvik, P. Daling, A.
Lewis, R. Fiocco, D. Mackay and R. Prentki, Spill
1) S.M. Varlamov, Proceedings of the 24 th Arctic and Sci. and Tech. Bull., 3-16(1999).
Marine Oil Spill Program (AMOP) Seminar, 11) K.D. Stolzenbach, O.S. Madsen, E.E. Adams, A.M.
575-596(2001). Pollack and C.K. Cooper, Report No. 222, Ralph M.
2) G. Copeland and W. Thiam-Yew, Environmental Parsons Lab., Dept. of Civil Engr., MIT, (1977).
Modelling & Software, 142-155(2006)21. 12) A. Okubo, Deep Sea Research, 789-802(1971)8.
3) W.J. Guo and Y.X. Wang, Marine Pollution Bul., 13) M. Abramowitz and I.A. Stegun, National Bureau of
726-734(2009)58. Standards applied Mathematics Series, (1964).
4) S.-D. Wang, Y.-M. Shen, Y.-K. Guo, and J. Tang, 14) http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/09/bp-gulf-oil-spill-cu
Ocean Engineering, 503-510 (2008)35. mulative-oil-slick.html
5) Y.J.Choi, A. Abe, and K. Takahashi, Gas Transfer
