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Inhibition of oil plume dilution in Langmuir ocean circulation
Author(s) -
Yang Di,
Chamecki Marcelo,
Meneveau Charles
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl059284
Subject(s) - dilution , plume , buoyancy , downwelling , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , oceanography , geology , meteorology , mechanics , physics , thermodynamics , upwelling
Oil spills from deep‐water blowouts rise through and interact with the ocean mixed layer and Langmuir turbulence, leading to considerable diversity of oil slick dilution patterns observed on the ocean surface. Certain conditions can drive oil droplet plumes to organize into distinct bands called windrows, inhibiting oil dilution. Observations of blurred or even diffused plumes are also common, but conditions under which these various dilution regimes emerge are not well understood. Here we use large eddy simulations to explain and quantify the dilution patterns and their dependence on relevant physical parameters. Two mechanisms, the downwelling and dilution due to Langmuir cells and the inhibition of dilution due to buoyancy of oil droplets, compete. This competition can be characterized by the ratio of Stokes drift to droplet rise velocity—the drift‐to‐buoyancy parameter, D b . We find that plume appearance and quantitative measures of relative dilution depend mainly on D b .