Oil spill forecast assessment using Fractions Skill Score.

In the event of an oil spill, emergency responders must quickly deploy cleanup and protection equipment using guidance provided by a forecast trajectory. Forecasting the location of the surface oil over time is standard practice; however, current performance metrics used for assessing the quality of the spill forecast lack both an appropriate numerical model accuracy score and specification of the expected spatial resolution limit for useful forecast information. This paper adapts the Fractions Skill Score method, commonly used in weather forecasting, to oil forecasting.

Extended oil spill spreading with Langmuir circulation.

When spilled in the ocean, most crude oils quickly spread into a thin film that ruptures into smaller slicks distributed over a larger area. Observers have also reported the film tearing apart into streaks that eventually merge forming fewer but longer bands of floating oil. Understanding this process is important to model oil spill transport.

Comparison of hypothetical LNG and fuel oil fires on water.

Large spills of refined petroleum products have been an occasional occurrence over the past few decades. This has not been true for large spills of liquefied natural gas (LNG). This paper compares the likely similarities and differences between accidental releases from a ship of sizable quantities of these different hydrocarbon fuels, their subsequent spreading, and possible pool-fire behavior.