Abstract
Abstract. As part of the integrated ECOOP (European Coastal Sea Operational observing and Forecasting System) project, HCMR upgraded the already existing standalone Oil Spill Forecasting System for the Aegean Sea, initially developed for the Greek Operational Oceanography System (POSEIDON), into an active element of the European Decision Support System (EuroDeSS). The system is accessible through a user friendly web interface where the case scenarios can be fed into the oil spill drift model component, while the synthetic output contains detailed information about the distribution of oil spill particles and the oil spill budget and it is provided both in text based ECOOP common output format and as a series of sequential graphics. The main development steps that were necessary for this transition were the modification of the forcing input data module in order to allow the import of other system products which are usually provided in standard formats such as NetCDF and the transformation of the model's calculation routines to allow use of current, density and diffusivities data in z instead of sigma coordinates. During the implementation of the Aegean DeSS, the system was used in operational mode in order to support the Greek marine authorities in handling a real accident that took place in North Aegean area. Furthermore, the introduction of common input and output files by all the partners of EuroDeSS extended the system's interoperability thus facilitating data exchanges and comparison experiments.
Highlights
The development of an oil spill forecasting system capable to provide information on demand and support the marine authorities in case of an emergency started with the im-plementation of the POSEIDON Operational Oceanography System for the Greek Seas (Soukissian et al, 2000) during the late 90’s
The first step towards an independent surface pollutant forecasting system was the development of a standalone oil spill model capable to use the high resolution atmospheric, wave and hydrodynamic forecasts that are produced daily by the different forecasting components of the POSEIDON System
The present paper describes the recent development of the POSEIDON oil spill model in order to become an integral component of the European Decision Support System (EuroDeSS) of the ECOOP project
Summary
A major upgrade of the system was realized during the research projects ROSES (Real Time Ocean Services for Environment and Security, 2003–2004) and MARCOAST (Marine and Coastal Environmental Information Services, 2005– 2008), funded by the European Space Agency (ESA). In the framework of these two projects, several parts of the oil spill system were modified in order to provide forecasts based on satellite oil spill detection in near real time. Under the appropriate additions and modifications, the Aegean oil spill system successfully integrated in the developed European System extending its capabilities to support the marine authorities that have the responsibility of handling emergency situations in the area
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