Modelling the mass exchange dynamics of oceanic surface and subsurface oil

Abstract

We propose a time dependent Eulerian model for sea surface entrainment, buoyancy transport and droplet dynamics of ocean oil. The model captures the microscale vertical oil mass exchanges in the neighborhood of the sea surface. This model is in turn part of an oil fate model designed to capture oil dynamics at large spatio-temporal scales typical of environmental studies. The adiabatic dynamics of the droplets are upscaled by a combination of filtering and stochastic parametrization. The upscaling addresses the computational burden of resolving the microscale. The upscaled droplet dynamics are tested against data and the mass exchange mechanism is incorporated into a nearshore oil transport model in order to highlight the importance of incorporating vertical mass exchanges and droplet distribution dynamics in predicting the distributing of shoaling oil.