Evolution of ocean slicks under a rising wind

Marmorino, G. O.; Smith, Geoffrey B.; Toporkov, Jakov V.; Sletten, Mark A.; Perkovic, Dragana; Frasier, Stephen J.

doi:10.1029/2007jc004538

Cited by 26 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…9a also reveals almost linear streaks approximately aligned with the wind. These structures, which have been seen previously in IR imagery of the sea surface (Marmorino et al 2008), we believe are the surface signatures of Langmuir turbulence. With complementary in situ data to measure the temperature and velocity structure of the upper mixed layer, airborne measurements of both the wave field (including the inferred Stokes drift) and the surface temperature field will prove important in remote sensing of these upperocean processes.…”

Section: B the Gulf Of Mexico Experimentssupporting

confidence: 78%

The Modular Aerial Sensing System

Melville

Lenain

Cayan

et al. 2016

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

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Satellite remote sensing has enabled remarkable progress in the ocean, earth, atmospheric, and environmental sciences through its ability to provide global coverage with ever-increasing spatial resolution. While exceptions exist for geostationary ocean color satellites, the temporal coverage of low-Earth-orbiting satellites is not optimal for oceanographic processes that evolve over time scales of hours to days. In hydrology, time scales can range from hours for flash floods, to days for snowfall, to months for the snowmelt into river systems. On even smaller scales, remote sensing of the built environment requires a building-resolving resolution of a few meters or better. For this broad range of phenomena, satellite data need to be supplemented with higher-resolution airborne data that are not tied to the strict schedule of a satellite orbit. To address some of these needs, a novel, portable, high-resolution airborne topographic lidar with video, infrared, and hyperspectral imaging systems was integrated. The system is coupled to a highly accurate GPS-aided inertial measurement unit (GPS IMU), permitting airborne measurements of the sea surface displacement, temperature, and kinematics with swath widths of up to 800 m under the aircraft, and horizontal spatial resolution as low as 0.2 m. These data are used to measure ocean waves, currents, Stokes drift, sea surface height (SSH), ocean transport and dispersion, and biological activity. Hydrological and terrestrial applications include measurements of snow cover and the built environment. This paper describes the system, its performance, and present results from recent oceanographic, hydrological, and terrestrial measurements.

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Section: B the Gulf Of Mexico Experimentssupporting

confidence: 78%

The Modular Aerial Sensing System

Melville

Lenain

Cayan

et al. 2016

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

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“…It is possible that as the surfactant gathers it acts to further damp the small-scale turbulent motions, allowing even more surfactant to remain on the surface. This is somewhat analogous to the effect of wind-induced surface turbulence: ambient slicks occur over a large fraction of the water surface in low winds, but decrease in size and in number as the wind speed increases [26], [27].…”

Section: B Eddy-slick Interactionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Infrared Remote Sensing of Surf-Zone Eddies

Marmorino

Smith

Miller

2013

IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observations Remote Sensing

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Airborne infrared imagery is used for the first time to investigate characteristics of surf-zone eddies, occurring along an along-shore uniform beach. Eddies are found to have diameters of 100 to 150 m, an alongshore spacing of about 375 m (2.5 times the surf-zone width), and lifetimes of 40 min and longer. Eddies travel alongshore at speeds of 0.3 to 0.5 m/s, at a distance from the shoreline of about 1.3 surf-zone widths. Eddies are also observed to move directly offshore, two surf-zone widths from the shoreline. Fine-scale thermal structure within an eddy includes 6-m-wide cold patches, possibly the surface imprints of bottom-induced turbulence, and a small ( 10-m wide) 'cold core', likely from accumulation of surfactant by radially inward surface flow. Visualization of an eddy is enhanced through flow deformation of surfactant slicks. In particular, narrow slicks appear to be wound-up by an eddy into spirals similar in form to those of a free vortex. In this sense, these nearshore eddies resemble ocean sub-mesoscale 'spiral eddies' as seen in synthetic-aperture radar and sunglint imagery.

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“…Marmorino et al . [] used both aircraft SAR and infrared imagery to follow natural oil slicks under increasing winds, relating the change in shapes and detection response to Langmuir circulation, which dispersed the slicks into along‐wind streaks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement and modeling of oil slick transport

et al. 2016

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Transport characteristics of oil slicks are reported from a controlled release experiment conducted in the North Sea in June 2015, during which mineral oil emulsions of different volumetric oil fractions and a look‐alike biogenic oil were released and allowed to develop naturally. The experiment used the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) to track slick location, size, and shape for ∼8 h following release. Wind conditions during the exercise were at the high end of the range considered suitable for radar‐based slick detection, but the slicks were easily detectable in all images acquired by the low noise, L‐band imaging radar. The measurements are used to constrain the entrainment length and representative droplet radii for oil elements in simulations generated using the OpenOil advanced oil drift model. Simultaneously released drifters provide near‐surface current estimates for the single biogenic release and one emulsion release, and are used to test model sensitivity to upper ocean currents and mixing. Results of the modeling reveal a distinct difference between the transport of the biogenic oil and the mineral oil emulsion, in particular in the vertical direction, with faster and deeper entrainment of significantly smaller droplets of the biogenic oil. The difference in depth profiles for the two types of oils is substantial, with most of the biogenic oil residing below depths of 10 m, compared to the majority of the emulsion remaining above 10 m depth. This difference was key to fitting the observed evolution of the two different types of slicks.

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Evolution of ocean slicks under a rising wind

Cited by 26 publications

References 44 publications

The Modular Aerial Sensing System

The Modular Aerial Sensing System

Infrared Remote Sensing of Surf-Zone Eddies

Measurement and modeling of oil slick transport

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