Oil spill risk management. Modeling Gulf of Mexico circulation and oil dispersal / Управление рисками разливов нефти. Моделирование циркуляции и распространения нефти в Мексиканском заливе

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill accident (variously referred to as the BP oil spill/disaster or the Macondo blowout) commenced on April 20th, 2010 on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect drilling platform. The ensuing fire aboard the drilling platform claimed eleven lives. Following the explosion and sinking of the fl oating oil rig, a sea-fl oor oil gusher fl owed for 87 days, until it was capped on July 15th, 2010. Th e total discharge has been estimated at 4.9 million barrels (780,000 m3), and the event was considered by some authorities to be the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. 

Gulf fi sheries, tourism, nearshore and wetlands environments were also severely damaged by the blowout [1]. Much of the released material was less dense than the Gulf surface waters, so its buoyancy caused it to rise to the surface and accumulate in a spreading surface patch. Some of the surface material was quickly blown ashore by winds. Some floating residues were entrained into Gulf of Mexico mesoscale eddies and into the Loop Current that are dominant features of the central and eastern Gulf. The combined action of winds and underlying Gulf currents apparently kept the surface material from escaping from the Gulf through the Florida Strait.2 A small amount of subsurface suspended denser material may have escaped undetected, either eastward through the Florida Strait or southward through the Yucatan Strait between Cuba and Mexico <...>