title: Modelling the long-term evolution of worst-case Arctic oil spills.
abstract: We present worst-case assessments of contamination in sea ice and surface waters resulting from hypothetical well blowout oil spills at ten sites in the Arctic Ocean basin. Spill extents are estimated by considering Eulerian passive tracers in the surface ocean of the MITgcm (a hydrostatic, coupled ice-ocean model). Oil in sea ice, and contamination resulting from melting of oiled ice, is tracked using an offline Lagrangian scheme. Spills are initialized on November 1st 1980-2010 and tracked for one year. An average spill was transported 1100km and potentially affected 1.1 million km2. The direction and magnitude of simulated oil trajectories are consistent with known large-scale current and sea ice circulation patterns, and trajectories frequently cross international boundaries. The simulated trajectories of oil in sea ice match observed ice drift trajectories well. During the winter oil transport by drifting sea ice is more significant than transport with surface currents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill University, 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC, H3A 0C3, Canada. Electronic address: hauke.blanken@mail.mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Hauke
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Blanken
authors.affiliation: Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal,QC,H3A 0B9, Canada.
authors.forename: Louis Bruno
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Tremblay
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill University, 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC, H3A 0C3, Canada.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gaskin
authors.affiliation: Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal,QC,H3A 0B9, Canada.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Slavin
mesh_terms: D001110:Arctic Regions; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D046448:Ice Cover; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D059392:Petroleum Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D014872:Water Movements; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Arctic; Ice-ocean; Oilspill; Risk; Sea-ice; Trajectory