VERTIMAR-2005

Symposium on Marine Accidental Oil Spills

Optimization of forcing inputs in the forecast of water surface

drift of hydrocarbons using pre-operational output results
Manuel ESPINO1, Eric COMERMA1, F. Javier MENENDEZ2,
Miquel SALAZAR1 and A.S.-ARCILLA1
1
Laboratori d’Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Campus Nord, Mòdul D1, c/ Jordi Girona 1-3, 08034 Barcelona (SPAIN).
2
Centro de Seguridad Marítima Integral Jovellanos, Apdo. correos 506. 33393 Gijón (SPAIN).

ABSTRACT In the framework Operational Oceanography, several met-ocean data products applied in the North-
western Mediterranean area are being used. Actually, several centres are already producing met-ocean forecasts on a
regular basis but these products are rarely ready-to-use for the monitoring and forecasting of oil spills. As several
forcing factors interact in the water surface (winds, waves, currents), forcing optimization should be considered. Some
preliminary results of the re-analysis of a drifting buoy released during the training exercise LIONMED’04 will be shown.

DESCRIPTION

In the framework of two Operational Oceanographic projects at national (www.eseoo.org)

and European level (www.bo.ingv.it), several met-ocean products available in the North-western
Mediterranean area are being used to predict and re-analyse the drift of tracking buoys.
Nowadays, Lagrangian-drifting buoys are more and more used in case of maritime incidents
leading to a marine pollution o during training exercise of virtual spills. In particular, LIONMED
(Dec. ‘04) and ANTIPOL05 exercises (expected May‘05) carried out by the Spanish Maritime
Safety and Rescue Agency (SASEMAR) will be reviewed.
Currently, several centres are producing met-ocean forecasts on a regular basis in the
Mediterranean Sea. However, these products are rarely ready-to-use for the monitoring and
forecasting of objects or pollutants spills. Forecasting data at regional or basin scale should be
integrated and/or nested into local centres in a Near-Real-Time (NRT) basis, in order to be
really useful in the management of a real marine / maritime crisis.
Several forcing inputs interact in the water surface, that is the boundary condition of
atmospheric, hydrodynamics and oil spill models. In this presentation, we will summarise the on-
going work about forcing optimization in the pollutant transport modelling. In particular, some
preliminary results of the re-analysis of the drifting buoy released during the LIONMED’04
exercise will be shown.
As a first step, results from several atmospheric and circulation models are compared
between them and against real measured data. Families of models have been defined
accordingly to the relation forcing-drive. In particular, in the MFSTEP framework project, results
from the pair of wind-currents models have been collected for the North-western Mediterranean
Sea: ALADIN-SYMPHONIE (at regional scale) and ECWMF-OPA (at basin scale).
In a second step, the forcing inputs are weighted and introduced in the oil spill / drifting
model. Usually (pre-)operational circulation models doesn’t have enough vertical resolution to
reproduce the strong advective compound within the upper water layer (1-2m.). For this reason,
we introduce an additional drifting factor due to wave / wind direct stress.
The final aim of the work is to characterize (optimise) the aforementioned results from wind
and circulation models and integrate them in a regional forecasting system of marine pollution
for the North-western Mediterranean Sea.