Modelling tides and surface drift in the Arabian Gulf—application to the Gulf oil spill

Abstract

A tide and surge forecasting model capable of predicting conditions for up to 5 days ahead has been developed to provide environmental data on tides, currents and particle trajectories in the Arabian Gulf. A two-dimensional depth-integrated model on a 5′ × 5′ grid of the entire Gulf, driven by a 10 constituent tidal forcing at the mouth near the Strait of Hormuz and by meteorological forecasts from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office global numerical weather prediction model was used to provide hourly distributions of the depth-averaged tidal and wind-driven currents. Following the discharge of oil from Mina Al Ahmadi into the Gulf in January 1991 an oil spill model was interfaced to the tide and surge model, providing forecasts of the movement and spread of the oil slick. The oil spill model used a three-dimensional particle tracking algorithm to model the dispersion of the oil so that surface and sub-surface concentrations could be determined. The effects of surface evaporation and decay of the oil were included in the model.