Statistical Oil Spill Simulations for the Northern Sea Route

(By Sylvi Vefsnmo ; INSROP Working Paper No. 136 – 1999, I.5.7)

The overall purpose of the project is to provide oil spill scenario information to the Environmental Impact Assessment process in Sub-programme II.

The statistical oil drift model OILSPILL is used to provide probabilities of oil contamination along the NSR. A total of 14 accidental oil spill scenarios have been considered. Advection and loss of oil due to evaporation and natural dispersion are the main physical processes accounted for in the model. The model also provides statistical distributions of arrival times to shore and stranded amounts of oil for each scenario. Stranding is defined when an oil drift trajectory enters into a coastal grid cell.

Sylvi Vefsnmo, 1999, Statistical Oil Spill Simulations for the Northern Sea Route, INSROP.©