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© 2023. This work is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The Transition Path Theory (TPT) of complex systems has proven a robust means for statistically characterizing the ensemble of trajectories that connect any two preset flow regions, say A and B, directly. More specifically, transition paths are such that they start in A and then go to B without detouring back to A or B. This way, they make an effective contribution to the transport from A to B. Here, we explore its use for building a scheme that enables predicting the evolution of anoil spill in the ocean. This involves appropriately adapting TPT such that it includes a reservoir that pumps oil into a typically open domain. Additionally, we lift up the restriction of the oil not to return to the spill site en route to a region that there is interest to be protected, e.g., the nearest coastline, as it is the oil that reaches the latter what really matters. TPT is applied on oil trajectories available up to the present, e.g., as integrated using velocities produced by a data assimilative system or as inferred from high-frequency radars, to make a prediction of transition oil paths beyond, without relying on forecasted oil trajectories. As a proof of concept we consider a hypothetical oil spill in the Trion oil field, under development within the Perdido Foldbelt in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is done using trajectories integrated from climatological and hindcast surface velocity and winds as well as produced by satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, in each case discretized into a Markov chain that provides a framework for the TPT-based prediction.

Details

Title
Exploring the use of Transition Path Theory in building an oil spill prediction scheme
Author
Olascoaga, M J; Beron-Vera, F J
Section
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Publication year
2023
Publication date
Mar 1, 2023
Publisher
Frontiers Research Foundation
e-ISSN
2296-7745
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2781014287
Copyright
© 2023. This work is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.