Abstract
Abstract. The pan-European capacity for the Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting (MyOcean) Marine Core Service, implementing the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) objectives, targets the provision of ocean state observations from various platforms and analysis and forecasting products to assist, among other downscaling activities, the needs of the operational response to marine safety, particularly concerning oil spills. The MEDSLIK oil spill and trajectory prediction system makes use of the MyOcean regional and Cyprus Coastal Ocean Forecasting and Observing System (CYCOFOS) downscaled forecasting products for operational application in the Mediterranean and pre-operational use in the Black Sea. Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) satellite remote sensing images from the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Maritime Safety Agency CleanSeaNet (EMSA-CSN) provide the means for routine monitoring of the southern European seas for the detection of illegal oil discharges. MEDSLIK offers various ways, to be described in this paper, of coupling the MyOcean forecasting data with ASAR images to provide both forecasts and hindcasts for such remotely observed oil slicks. The main concern will be the drift of the oil slick and also, in the case of the forecast mode, its diffusive spreading, although some attempt is also made to estimate the changes in the state of the oil. The successful link of the satellite-detected oil slicks with their operational predictions using the MyOcean products contributes to the operational response chain and the strengthening of maritime safety for accidental or illegal spills, in implementation of the Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety (MEDESS-4MS) regarding oil spills.
Highlights
The risk from oil spill pollution in the European seas, in the Mediterranean (REMPEC, 2008) and Black Seas, is high due to the heavy traffic of merchant vessels for transporting oil and gas, and due to the coastal and offshore installations related to the oil and gas industry
This paper aims to describe the use of the MyOcean regional and downscaled forecasts by the MEDSLIK oil spill and trajectory prediction system with particular application of Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) satellite images
As with any oil slick, one of the tasks arising from a satellite observation is to forecast where it is likely to move to, with the aim of determining if any significant environmental resources are threatened by the oil, and, if so, deciding where and how best to protect them
Summary
The risk from oil spill pollution in the European seas, in the Mediterranean (REMPEC, 2008) and Black Seas, is high due to the heavy traffic of merchant vessels for transporting oil and gas, and due to the coastal and offshore installations related to the oil and gas industry. Europa.eu) satellite service for oil slick detection was set up on the 16 April 2007, almost a year after the Lebanese oil pollution crisis in summer 2006, which is considered the biggest oil spill incident so far in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (World Bank, 2007; Coppini et al, 2011) This EMSA service is dedicated to supporting the Member State response agencies with routine monitoring of European seas using ASAR satellite images for illegal oil discharges, and assisting them in the implementation of the EU Directive 2005/35. The MyOcean/CYCOFOS downscaled products in the Levantine Basin are used by an automatic version of MEDSLIK (internally known as AutoMedTrack) without any operator intervention, along with ASAR satellite data for short forward and backward predictions These predictions can be superimposed with the Automatic Identification of Ships (AIS) traffic information to assist the response agencies in identifying the ships responsible for the detected oil slicks, contributing in this way in the implementation of the EU Directive 2005/35. This paper aims to describe the use of the MyOcean regional and downscaled forecasts by the MEDSLIK oil spill and trajectory prediction system with particular application of ASAR satellite images
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