Understanding the next oil spill
Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment
September 10, 2019 Predicting where oil will go can be one of the most challenging aspects of marine oil spill response. Following Deepwater Horizon, research showed that strong currents capable of transporting oil often appear along ocean fronts (the interface between river like-water masses that have different temperatures, salinities, or densities). However, our limited understanding […]
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August 15, 2019 Researchers described field methods and observations using the Ship-Tethered Aerostat Remote Sensing System (STARSS) to better understand how buoyant material moves and disperses on the ocean’s surface. Using algorithms based on geo-rectified imagery, the STARSS successfully quantified small-scale and high-frequency surface dispersion in an open-ocean environment and improved observational diffusivity estimates in […]
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August 8, 2019 Scientists assessed the dynamics of heat and momentum exchange between the ocean and atmosphere to better understand how these factors influence Gulf of Mexico circulation. Specifically, they investigated how these factors constrained the heat dissipation rate (energy transferred to the atmosphere) in non-hurricane conditions during a month-long field experiment studying ocean transport […]
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