Author(s)

Thereza Christina de Almeida Rosso & Paulo Cesar Colonna Rosman

Abstract

— The spreading of floating contaminants, such as oil, with density smaller than that of the water, depends strongly on the flow velocities at the free water surface. In coastal areas, the tides and the wind shear stresses exerted on the free water surface are the main driving forces of the carrying flow. In most numerical models for predictions of oil spill transport, the flow velocity at free water surface is computed by the vector sum of the prevalent currents, obtained through a vertically averaged model for instance, with the wind drift velocity. This methodology usually gives good results in offshore situations, but can lead to significant errors when applied to coastal regions or to restricted water bodies, Rosso\ The option for full tri-dimensional mode

Keywords