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Article
High-Resolution Remote Sensing, In-Situ Observations, and Modeling of Low-Salinity Lenses in the Presence of Oil Slick
IEEE Xplore
  • Alexander Soloviev, Nova Southeastern University
  • Breanna L Vanderplow, Nova Southeastern University
  • Cayla Dean, Nova Southeastern University
  • Egbert Schwarz, German Aerospace Center
  • Susanne Lehner, German Aerospace Center
  • Hui Shen, Bedford Institute of Oceanography
  • William Perrie, Bedford Institute of Oceanography
  • Paul Schuler, Oil Spill Response Limited
ORCID
0000-0001-6519-1547
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-17-2021
Keywords
  • Lenses,
  • Oils,
  • Computational modeling,
  • Computational fluid dynamics,
  • Satellites,
  • Salinity (geophysical),
  • Synthetic aperture radar,
  • SAR,
  • river runoff,
  • low-salinity lenses,
  • oil slicks
Abstract

River runoff on the Louisiana Coast produces shallow, low-salinity lenses. Due to the presence of a leaking oil platform (Taylor Energy), the fine structure of these lenses is visible in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. In this paper, we report results of the comprehensive study including high-resolution remote sensing and in-situ observations of low-salinity lenses on the Louisiana Coast as well as modeling the lens using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Our results indicate that these transient near-surface lenses create significant horizontal density gradients and spread as gravity currents, influencing the propagation of oil slicks.

DOI
10.1109/IGARSS39084.2020.9323394
Comments

This project was possible due to funding by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment and Office of Naval Research Award N00014-18-1-2835. The raw data have been submitted to the GRIIDC database.

Additional Comments
This paper was presented at the IGARSS 2020 - 2020 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.
Citation Information
Alexander Soloviev, Breanna L Vanderplow, Cayla Dean, Egbert Schwarz, et al.. "High-Resolution Remote Sensing, In-Situ Observations, and Modeling of Low-Salinity Lenses in the Presence of Oil Slick" IEEE Xplore (2021) p. 5753 - 5756
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alexander-soloviev/130/