MEDSLIK-II, a Lagrangian marine oil spill model for short-term forecasting – Part 1: Theory

Abstract

Abstract. The processes of transport, diffusion and transformation of surface oil in seawater can be simulated using a Lagrangian model formalism coupled with Eulerian circulation models. This paper describes the formalism and the conceptual assumptions of a Lagrangian marine oil slick numerical model and re-writes the constitutive equations in a modern mathematical framework. The Lagrangian numerical representation of the oil slick requires three different state variables: the slick, the particle and the structural state variables. Transformation processes (evaporation, spreading, dispersion and coastal adhesion) act on the slick state variables, while particles variables are used to model the transport and diffusion processes. The slick and particle variables are recombined together to compute the oil concentration in water, a structural state variable. The mathematical and numerical formulation of oil transport, diffusion and transformation processes described in this paper, together with the many simplifying hypothesis and parameterizations, form the basis of a new, open source Lagrangian surface oil spill model, so-called MEDSLIK-II. Part 2 of this paper describes the applications of MEDSLIK-II to oil spill simulations that allow the validation of the model results and the study of the sensitivity of the simulated oil slick to different model numerical parameterizations.