Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199 www.elsevier.

com/locate/envsoft

Revisions of the ADIOS oil spill model

William Lehr *, Robert Jones, Mary Evans, Debra Simecek-Beatty, Roy Overstreet
Hazardous Materials Response Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA 98115, USA Received 14 March 2000; received in revised form 19 January 2001; accepted 29 July 2001

Abstract For several years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hazardous Materials Response Division (NOAA/HAZMAT) has been using and distributing the computer software package called ADIOS (Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills) to aid responders in oil spill cleanup. ADIOS forecasts the weathering processes and characteristics of oil slicks. Based on new research results and analysis since the rst version was released, a major update revises and improves previous algorithms, plus adds new modules for other weathering processes and for spill cleanup strategies. The weathering processes included in the new version, called ADIOS2, are spreading, evaporation, dispersion, sedimentation, and emulsication. The user cleanup options are dispersants, in-situ burning, and skimming. Different types of release scenarios can be simulated and the user is allowed to enter ranges for selected input variables with the resulting uncertainty displayed in the model output. 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Oil spill; Oil weathering; Spill cleanup; Pollution modeling; Oil slick

Software availability Program title: ADIOS, ADIOS2 Developer: Hazardous Materials Response Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Contact address: ADIOS Development Team, NOAA/HAZMAT, 7600 Sand Point Way N.E., Seattle, Wash. USA 98115, Tel: (206) 5266317, E-mail: adiosinfo@hazmat.noaa.gov, website: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov Year First Available: ADIOS 1994, ADIOS2 2000 Hardware: Macintosh, PC Operating system: OS 7.5 and above (Mac), Windows 95 and above (PC) Program language: C, C++ Program size: Recommend 5 MB available hard disk space Availability: Download free from website

1. Introduction

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-206-526-6317; fax: +1-206-5266329. E-mail address: billFlehr@hazmat.noaa.gov (W. Lehr).
1364-8152/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII: S 1 3 6 4 - 8 1 5 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 6 4 - 0

Oil spills are an inevitable and undesirable consequence of producing and transporting petroleum and its rened products. While most of these spills will be small, a few will be large enough to cause serious impact to the environment unless there is a swift and effective response. When combating an oil spill, it is vital for the cleanup team to know the expected fate and behavior of the spilled oil. With the widespread use of computers over the past two decades there has come the development of mathematical models and accompanying computer programs to attempt to model the behavior of spilled oil. The most widely used such model is probably the one developed by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hazmat Division (NOAA/HAZMAT) with funding support from the United States Coast Guard and the U. S. Minerals Management Service. Called ADIOS (Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills), it was rst released in 1994. It will be referred to in this paper as ADIOS1 to distinguish it from a major revision, called ADIOS2. This article describes the algorithmic and structural changes that were made in this revision.

192

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

2. Overview of the major modeled processes Table 1 lists the processes and properties modeled or tracked by both versions of ADIOS. The numbers in brackets refer to the version number of the model. All the algorithm choices used in ADIOS1 were re-examined as part of the upgrade project. Three criteria were used to select the appropriate formulas for the new version. In order of decreasing importance, these criteria were: (1) accurate comparison with experimental data and observations from actual spills, (2) theoretical soundness, and (3) acceptance as a standard formula by the spill community. Based upon this analysis, modications were made to all the ADIOS1 algorithms and new algorithms were used for the processes and properties not modeled in the earlier version. A brief description of the algorithms employed to model the major weathering processes and properties is given below. 2.1. Spreading As soon as oil is released into the environment, it undergoes signicant property changes. For example, oil begins to spread as soon as it is spilled but it does not spread uniformly. Any shear in the surface current will cause stretching and even a slight wind will cause a thickening of the slick in the downwind direction. Most spills quickly form a comet shape where a small region of black oil is trailed by a much larger sheen. However, most of the oil from a spill is in the black, thick part, with only a small percentage of the spilled oil in the trailing thin sheen. For spreading calculations, ADIOS1 used an extension (Lehr et al., 1984) of the Fay gravity-viscous spreading formula (Fay, 1971). The extension incorporated wind induced spreading in a semi-empirical manner. ADIOS2 utilizes a numerical approach to slick spreading. The program divides the slick up into separate Lagrangian elements that are individually transported by wind stress, surface currents, Fay gravity-viscous forces, and random turbulence. Following the suggestion of Ahlstrom (1975), ADIOS2 approximates Fay spreading
Table 1 Properties and processes modeled or tracked in ADIOS Properties density(1,2) viscosity(1,2) water fraction(1,2) benzene hazard(2) Processes dispersion(1,2) evaporation(1,2) emulsication(1,2) spreading(1,2) beaching(2) in-situ burning(2) leak rate(2) skimming(2) smoke plume(2)

by a diffusion process where the diffusion coefcient, DFay, is given by

1/3 rw

DFay

gV

2 0

1 t

vw

(1)

Here, rw is the relative oil water density, g is gravitational acceleration, V0 is initial spill volume, v is the kinematic viscosity of water, and t is the time after spill release. Added to this diffusion coefcient is a second diffusion coefcient designed to represent eddy diffusion of the surface water. Based on dye studies, Elliot and Hurford (1989) conclude that such a process is non-Fickian, and that a time dependent diffusion parameter, adopted by ADIOS2, better represents empirical results. Probably the most important cause of long term oil spreading is wind stress on the slick and surface water. Observations at past spills have resulted in a rule-of thumb that the oil slick moves at approximately three percent of the wind speed measured at ten meters above the water surface. Roughly two thirds of this movement represents Stokes drift of the surface waves. The remaining one third represents the movement of the slick along the water surface. Also, oil is driven into the water column by breaking waves and broken into droplets of different size. ADIOS2 adopts the model of Elliot et al. (1986). which uses a boundary layer approach to estimate the vertical dependence on wind driven displacement of the Lagrangrian elements and Stokes law to estimate their reoat time. Delvigne and Sweeney (1988) suggest that dispersed oil is driven down to a depth of one and a half the signicant wave height. The number of oil droplets, N, centered around the droplet diameter, d, in the interval, d, is given by N(d) d d
2.3(0.06)

(2)

The larger droplets quickly resurface while the smaller droplets remain subsurface for longer time periods and trail the moving main slick. It has been hypothesized that this is the cause for the comet shape of many slicks where a thicker part of the oil at the upwind part is encompassed in a larger sheen that trails out behind the thick part.The smallest droplets never resurface and are thus permanently removed from the surface slick. ADIOS2 randomly assigns a droplet size to each LE based on this distribution prole and then calculates the net wind-caused displacement depending upon the fraction of the time the LE is below or on the surface. ADIOS2 allows the introduction of a constant surface

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

193

current when computing the spread of the oil. This allows more realistic modeling of continuous spills from a xed point such as an offshore platform. It will make no difference for instantaneous spills since each part of the slick would experience the same net displacement. An Eulerian slick thickness is reconstructed in ADIOS2 after the displacement of the Lagrangian elements by allowing each element to represent the center of a Thiessen polygon (Green and Sibson, 1978). This allows variable thicknesses within the modeled slick, something not permitted in the earlier version. As the slick ages further, it is not uncommon to have it split into separate streamers due to wave action or Langmuir effects (Thorpe, 1995; Lehr and SimecekBeatty, 2000). The latter cause a system of ridges and troughs on the water surface with the troughs becoming natural collection areas for oating oil. The end result is lines of oil parallel to the prevailing wind. The long term fate of oating oil is usually to form small tarballs, one centimeter to several centimeters in diameter, spread out over a large area. These Langmuir effects and tarball formation processes are not modeled in ADIOS2. 2.2. Evaporation Oil will evaporate from the surface of the slick. Because the slick is a mixture of thousands of different compounds, the rate of evaporation will decrease as the slick ages. The more volatile components will partition to the air, causing the slick to become rich in higher molecular weight compounds. Usually components that contain more than eighteen carbon atoms will not evaporate during the time when the spilled oil is still denable as a contiguous slick or a small set of contiguous patches (Regnier and Scott, 1975). It is not uncommon for one fourth to one third of spilled oil to evaporate within the rst week of the spill. For light rened products such as gasoline or diesel, virtually all of the slick will evaporate or disperse into the water column. The major environmental factors that affect the rate of evaporation are wind speed and water temperature. ADIOS1 used Mackays analytical method (Stiver and Mackay, 1984) to estimate evaporation. This method treats the oil as a uniform substance whose properties change as the slick weathers. However, it is not well suited to situations where there are other mass loss processes and it is only appropriate for crudes with roughly linear distillation curves. ADIOS2 contains a pseudo-component evaporation model (Jones, 1997). In the pseudo-component approach, crude oils and rened products are modeled as a relatively small number of discrete, non-interacting components. Each pseudo component (PC) is treated as a single substance with an associated vapor pressure and relative mole fraction. The total evaporation rate of the slick is the sum of the individual rates. However, the

individual rate for a particular component is coupled to the other PCs by the relative mole fraction. The distillation cuts from the the oil database are used to generate the PCs. The volumetric evaporation rate for a single PC can be written as a function of the volume of the oil, and the mole fraction and molar volume of the component: dV dt U7/9V(Pvvfm)j d (3)

Here j species the particular PC, fm is the time-varying molar fraction of the pseudo component, V is the oil volume, U is the wind speed, and d is the slick thickness. The relative molar volume, v, is estimated by treating the PC as if it were a collection of alkanes and using an empirical correlation of the alkanes molar volume to their boiling point. The vapor pressure of each PC, Pv, is based on Antoines equation as discussed in Lyman et al. (1990). The set of coupled (by molar fraction) differential Eqs. (3) and (4) are solved approximately using an extension of the MacKay evaporative exposure method (Stiver and Mackay, 1984) to multiple components. Responders may be concerned that the volatile components of freshly spilled oil, particularly benzene, may present possible human health hazards due to inhalation by cleanup workers. Therefore, the benzene component of the evaporated oil is coupled with a vapor dispersion model that uses a boundary layer approach and calculates the centerline concentration at the downwind edge of the slick at a one meter elevation (Lehr, 1996). The spill is assumed to be large enough that the effects of the horizontal gradient of turbulence are negligible. Neutrally stable atmospheric conditions are assumed. 2.3. Emulsication While evaporation reduces the volume of the surface slick, emulsication increases it. The turbulent energy in the surrounding water can cause small droplets of water to get mixed into the oil, forming a water-in-oil emulsion. The amount of water and water droplet size distribution affects the viscosity and temporal stability of the emulsion. A fully emulsied, stable emulsion may contain eighty to ninety percent water. The onset of emulsication is important for cleanup decisions and it is therefore useful for a weathering model to have the capability to forecast this event. The oil database used by both versions of ADIOS has observational data on this from actual spills for a handful of oils and some results from lab data from articially weathered oil experiments. Estimates can be made on new oils by comparing them with tested oils of similar composition but, in general, this is a difcult parameter

194

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

to quantify. Not all oils will emulsify and many crude oils will only emulsify after a certain amount of evaporation or photo-oxidation has occurred. Some researchers believe that waxes, resins, and, most importantly, asphaltenes play the dominant role in determining whether the slick will emulsify (Bobra, 1991). ADIOS2, based on the more recent studies of Fingas et al. (1996), uses only asphaltene fraction in estimating emulsication potential. Such high molecular weight hydrocarbons may be considered as solutes in a solvent consisting of the lighter hydrocarbon components of the oil. As the oil weathers and loses the light ends, these large molecules may precipitate out, forming crystals that stabilize small water droplets in the oil. Once an oil begins to emulsify, the process typically proceeds at a rapid rate. ADIOS1 uses the simple rst order rate law proposed by Mackay et al. (1980) to estimate water content Y dY kemU2 dt Ymax (4)

2.4. Dispersion While the molecular solubility of oil in water is quite small, breaking waves will drive small droplets of the oil into the water column. If the droplets are small enough, natural turbulence in the water will prevent the oil from resurfacing, just as turbulence in the air keeps small dust particles aoat. This process is called dispersion. Chemical surfactants are sometimes sprayed on slicks to enhance this process but it will also occur naturally, provided there is sufcient ocean energy and the spilled oil has a low enough viscosity. In both versions of the model, dispersion of oil into the water column is estimated using a hydraulic model developed by Delvigne and Sweeney (1988). They measured the number and size distribution of oil droplets driven into the water column by breaking waves. The vertical entrainment of oil is directly proportional to the dissipation of energy of a single breaking wave, the total dissipation rate for a given wave spectrum, and the volume of oil injected into the surface layer each time a wave breaks. The Delvigne-Sweeney formula for volume entrainment of oil, Q, is given by Q cdispD0.57fbwVdisp e (7)

Here, Y and Ymax are water fraction and maximum water fraction of the oil-water emulsion. U is wind speed. A typical value for kem is one to two microseconds per square meter of slick. Stability and viscosity may be related not only to water content but also to the distribution of water droplet size in the emulsion (Barnes, 1994). With increasing time and mixing, the droplet size distribution shifts toward smaller droplets even as the total water content remains constant. This shift increases the water-oil interfacial area and generally leads to longer-lived, more viscous emulsions. The water uptake equation used in ADIOS1 is incapable of modeling this aspect of emulsion formation. In a series of laboratory experiments with crude oils, Eley et al. (1988) found that the rate of emulsion formation was best described by a rst-order rate law in interfacial area, rather than water content. Their formulation was used in ADIOS2 to describe how water content and the droplet size distribution change with time: S dS ks 1 dt Smax (5)

Here, cdisp is an experimentally determined parameter, fbw is fraction of breaking waves per wave period per unit area, and Vdisp is volume of oil entrained per unit volume of water. It is obtained (to within a constant) by integrating the product of the droplet volume and the frequency distribution of droplets over the volume of oil. The dissipation of wave energy per unit surface area, De, is estimated by De 0.0034rwgH2 rms (8) where Hrms is the root-mean-square wave height in meters, and rw is the water density in kilograms per cubic meter. The determination of fbw is difcult and subject to large uncertainty (Thorpe and Humphries, 1980). Delvigne and Sweeney (1988) used the eld observations of Holthuijsen and Herbers (1986) and Toba et al. (1971) to estimate the fraction of sea surface covered by whitecaps as a function of the wind speed at ten meter elevations. However, Holthuijsen and Herbers actually measured the ratio of breaking waves to non-breaking waves, which is a slightly different quantity. ADIOS1, based on the work of Monahan and OMuircheartaigh (1980), uses a higher-order polynomial to estimate breaking wave fraction as a function of wind speed. ADIOS2 assumes that whitecap formation begins at 3 m/sec and increases linearly to 5% coverage at 4 m/sec, where a second linear relationship, utilizing the more recent observations of Ding and Farmer (1994), is applied. fw 0.01U 0.01 (9)

where the interfacial parameter, ks, is sensitive to wave energy. Here, S and Smax are the oil-water interfacial area and maximum interfacial area, respectively. Water fraction is related to interfacial area and average water droplet diameter, dw, by the equation Y Sdw 6+Sdw (6)

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

195

Here fw is whitecap fraction. Alternative formulations are under consideration, particularly for high energy conditions where the whitecap increase may be more rapid than described by Eq. (9). The fraction of breaking waves per unit time is then computed by dividing the whitecap fraction (as dened in terms of the active acoustic coverage denition given by Ding and Farmer) by the appropriate time constant for whitecap formation (Monahan, 1971; Lehr and Simecek-Beatty, 2000). ADIOS2 combines the dispersion model with a sediment scavenging model, which refers to adhesion of dispersed oil droplets to particulates present in the water column. For most open water spills, it is usually not an important process for oil removal during the time frame considered. However, in areas of high concentrations of suspended particulate matter, adhesion of the oil to particles, which may later settle to the bottom or disperse away from the slick, may play a key role in the slick mass balance equations. The actual physical process of sedimentation is quite complicated, and the important parameters in the process are not well understood. As an interim approach, ADIOS2 uses a simple model proposed by Payne et al. (1987), which relates sedimentation rate to stickiness of the oil, oil droplet concentration, sediment concentration, and dissipation energy rate for surface water Qsed ka Defbw CC Hrmsrwvw 0 sed (10)

emulsication greatly increases viscosity. Both model versions use algorithms proposed by Mackay et al. (1983) to estimate the change in viscosity as the oil weathers. v vrefexp ctemp TrefT TrefT cevapfevap cemul1Y 1cemul2 (11)

The equation refers the slicks viscosity, v, to the viscosity of the fresh oil, vref, at some reference temperature Tevap, and fraction of the spilled oil that has evaporated, fevap. The oil temperature, T, is not usually available so the model approximates it as the temperature of the surrounding water. The constants ctemp, cevap, cemul1, cemul2 are assigned values by ADIOS1 based on the general type of oil. ADIOS2 uses oil specic experimental data where it exists. Density is also affected by these same three parameters but to a lesser extent. The formula for density, r, is r Yrw (1 Y)rref[1 c1(T Tref)](1 c2fevap) (12)

Here, rw is the water density. The terms c1 and c2 are empirically tted constants that will vary somewhat for different oils. Reasonable values are 0.008 K 1 and 0.18, respectively. 2.6. Cleanup Besides the use of chemical dispersants, common cleanup methods are mechanically skimming the oil or burning it on the water, usually called in-situ burning. A major concern of the rst method is the danger of inhalation of toxic chemicals, particularly benzene, by the cleanup crew. A major health concern of the latter method is the effects of the resulting smoke plume. The authors have already discussed how the new version of the model estimates benzene air concentrations. ADIOS2 calculates the burn rate and resultant smoke plume using the approach of Lehr and Overstreet (1998). This approach utilizes the bent plume concept of Briggs (1984). If the oil does not evaporate, disperse, or is not cleaned up, it may be deposited onto nearby shorelines. ADIOS1 and ADIOS2 do not predict the trajectory of any spilled oil. Such trajectory models (Fallah and Stark, 1976) require modeling of site specic winds and currents. However, ADIOS2 does allow the user to input estimates of beached oil based on shoreline surveys or by using output from oil slick trajectory models. 3. Program design While not true object-oriented software, both versions of ADIOS were written following certain object-oriented

where C0 is the entrained oil volume concentration and Csed is the suspended sediment volume concentration. ka is a sticking parameter that depends on the type and size of the sediment particles. Since it is impossible in the eld to separate oil lost due to dispersion from that lost due to sedimentation, the program combines the processes as one removal mechanism. Thus droplets that adhere to the suspended sediment or are below a minimum diameter (70 microns) are considered permanently removed from the surface slick. 2.5. Viscosity and density Evaporation and emulsication increase the density and viscosity of the slick. Even when freshly spilled, most oils and oil products are more viscous than water. While water has a dynamic viscosity of approximately 1 cP., kerosene, for example, has a dynamic viscosity of 10 cP and crude oils can have viscosities of several hundred cP or more. Emulsied oils can have viscosities that are orders of magnitude larger than the corresponding fresh oil and often behave as a non-Newtonian uid. Density will also increase due to weathering but, generally, not to such an extent that the oil loses its buoyancy. Viscosity is a strong function of temperature and state of weathering of the oil. Also, as mentioned earlier,

196

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

protocols. The computational engine, which contains the weathering algorithms, is isolated from the oil database and platform-dependent user interface. The model component diagram for ADIOS 2 is shown in Fig. 1. The user supplies information about the source of the spill and existing and forecasted environmental conditions, as well as specifying cleanup options and parameters that may be input as ranges rather than exact values. Information about the spilled oil is extracted from a default or custom oil detabase (see discussion below). All the data are converted to a standard set of units and stored on an electronic blackboard. This blackboard provides the information for the numerical algorithms in the computational core. Both versions of ADIOS combine an oil weathering simulation module with an oil properties database that characterizes different crude oils and oil products. There are currently over one thousand oils listed in the database. The database has been constructed with data from many different sources. Major contributors to the library are Environment Canada via the Catalogue of Crude Oil Properties, the United States Department of Energy crude oil analysis database, the European Organization for Environmental and Health Protection oil listing, and the Oil and Gas Journal. Many oil producing, shipping, and rening companies have also provided NOAA with physical property data. Unfortunately, the information collected on oils is typically done for rening purposes. As a result, it is often in a format that requires transformation to be suitable for an oil weathering model. Also, it is usually incomplete, and approximations must be made for missing properties by comparing the oil to a similar one with the missing property data. The mini-

mum dataset needed for crude oils to be included in the ADIOS oil database is a density value and a viscosity measurement, including the measurement reference temperature and the units of measurement. The density value is often expressed as an API gravity, a density unit common to the oil industry. Experience with version 1 of the model at actual spill events indicated that such a minimum data set often gave spurious answers for rened products due to the variability of different fuel oils bearing the same product name. Therefore, ADIOS2 requires distillation data for all rened products in the database. ADIOS2 also allows the user to create a custom oil database, either by selecting an oil from the standard list and modifying it, or by inputting data on a new oil, guided by an input template. One danger that results from allowing the user to enter his/her own oil properties is the risk of data inconsistency. The modelers have attempted to minimize this risk by restricting the input format choices and providing cross checks for different data elements. An important factor in building a model that simulates an environmental process is the choice of input parameters. A complete description of all possible environmental inputs that could effect the system would be extremely long and unattainable by the program user. NOAA (Overstreet et al., 1995; Lehr et al., 1995) has conducted sensitivity studies to ascertain the most important parameters for oil weathering behavior. A fundamental element of sensitivity analysis is the differentiation of dependent variables of interest with respect to model parameters, in this case restricted to input parameters, and then the expansion of these variables into Taylor series about nominal mean values of these para-

Fig. 1.

Module component diagram for ADIOS2.

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

197

meters. This procedure, which generates so-called sensitivity functions, can be interpreted as a measure of the models sensitivity to its parameters (Calhoun and Overstreet, 1994). Unfortunately, sometimes an input parameter that signicantly affects the model may be difcult for the user to know in a spill emergency. For example, the smoke plume sub-model in ADIOS2 is sensitive to the atmospheric vertical temperature prole. Rather than limit the use of the sub-model to users who would have this information, the model is simply run for multiple atmospheric congurations which would be typical in open water conditions and a range of results is displayed. Alternatively, vital input parameters can also sometimes be approximated from other input data. For example, the user can input wave heights if known. Otherwise the model will estimate them from standard formulae using wind and fetch inputs (Coastal Engineering Research Center, 1984). Table 2 lists environmental and source inputs used by the model. Some internal model parameters can also be modied by the sophisticated user. While computer models such as ADIOS generate denite predictions, the real world is lled with uncertainty. Particularly for spill emergencies, the data used to initiate and calibrate the model will be incomplete and contain errors. Calculating only an average value for some oil property without giving a possible range for that same value may lead to less optimal cleanup strategies than a more complete picture of oil behavior could provide. Therefore, version 2 allows the user to enter ranges of selected input parameters that are likely to be uncertain during a spill. Fortunately, virtually all of the weathering algorithms are monotonically increasing or decreasing functions of the input variables so that extremums of the output variables are their values at the boundaries of the input parameter ranges. ADIOS2 calculates and records these extremums while the earlier version only computes a mean value. Program variables are grouped into related structures and stored on an electronic blackboard. Submodules of
Table 2 Environmental and spill release input parameters. Terms followed by (opt) are optional Environmental wind speed(s) wind direction(s) wind speed uncertainty (opt) fetch (opt) air temperature (opt) water temperature water salinity wave height(s) sediment load (opt) current speed (opt) current direction (opt) Spill release time(s) of release oil name spill amount/rate release duration release amount uncertainty (opt) leaking tank parameters (opt) contained spill (opt) (opt)

the program communicate to each other through this blackboard, allowing improved error and limits checking. All the variables are declared with negative values but dened such that only non-negative numbers are valid settings. This makes it simple to ascertain whether a necessary variable has been assigned a value by the user or the model. Fig. 2 shows sample input and output screens from ADIOS2. To ensure that both novices and experts can easily use the program for their own work, the developers implemented software usability engineering techniques (Evans et al., 1999) to design the interface of the new version. Team members used design features intended to help novices, without impeding experts. These features included progressive disclosure, incorporation of documentation into the program interface, and error-checking safeguards. Progressive disclosure refers to a design method used to structure a software interface so that it can be operated by people at several levels of expertise. Such an interface displays information in a layered way, so that basic features are readily available to new users, while more advanced features are less evident but still accessible to experts. A decision was made to incorporate documentation into the program interface, to make it more available to users. For ADIOS2, much of the material traditionally found in a manual is presented as linked hypertext available from the interface. The team empirically checked the effectiveness of their design in a series of usability tests in which they observed spill responders and planners using a prototype to complete realistic tasks. Team members recorded problems encountered by test participants, as well as participants suggestions and comments.

4. Discussion Unfortunately, oil spill science is a data starved environment. As emergency events, oil spills do not provide ideal conditions for experimentation and hypothesis testing. Cleanup personnel are properly more interested in mediating the environmental damage from the oil, than providing resources and data to on-scene scientists. This means that oil spill modeling is often based on measurements performed in laboratories or on small experimental spills that are orders of magnitudes smaller than real accidental spills. The algorithms for individual properties or processes can perhaps be checked by lab studies or small eld experiments but synergistic behavior of all the factors affecting a real spill of several thousand barrels cannot be easily duplicated by experiment. This makes calibrating oil weathering models such as ADIOS a difcult task. Anecdotal evidence from actual spills (Jones et al., 1994; Lehr et al., 1996) indicates that ADIOS1 provides reasonable output useful for cleanup decisions. At the time of this writing, ADIOS2

198

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

Fig. 2.

Sample input and output screens.

is only recently released. Comparison with a small experimental spill of 30 tonnes of Oseberg crude (Johansen, 1991) indicates that the model overforecasts evaporation by as much as 50% during the early hours of the spill but underforecasts for later periods, giving a net evaporative loss that is within 15% of the reported amount from the experiment. Probably this is due to model idealization of the spill release details, since the fresh oil was discharged directly into the sea through a exible hose rather than being released at the surface. However, it could also, in part, be due to the fact that the reported experimental evaporation value must itself be inferred from other measurements since it is not directly measurable and requires some assumptions about dispersive losses. Water content and, therefore, viscosity predictions are larger than measured. The emulsions were reported to be unstable and there were signicant variations in the listed water content, which suggests there could have been some subsequent oilwater separation from sample collection to sample analysis. However, the water content predictions of the model were consistently larger than the reported water content by 1020%. Both the model and the experiment showed emulsication onset within the rst hour, although this would not have been the case had the model agreed with the experimental evaporation results. The ideal situation, of course, would be to compare

the ADIOS2 predictions with complete and detailed insitu measurements of an actual large oil spill, an event that is not subject to the schedules of research programs. Thus far, it has been used on approximately 40 smaller spills and, like ADIOS1, anecdotal evidence indicates that the model provides answers in reasonable agreement with eld observations for situations where the assumptions of the model are valid.

References
Ahlstrom, S.W., 1975. A Mathematical Model for Predicting the Transport of Oil Slicks in Marine Waters. Battelle Pacic Northwest Laboratories, Richland, Wash., USA. Barnes, H.A., 1994. Rheology of emulsions a review. Colloids Surfaces A: Physicom Engineering Aspects 91, 8995. Bobra, M., 1991. Water-in-oil emulsication: a physicochemical study. Proceedings of the 1991 International Oil Spill Conference, American Petroleum Institute, Washington DC, pp. 483488. Briggs, G.A., 1984. Plume rise and buoyancy effects. In: Randerson, D., (Ed.) Atmospheric Science and Power Production, U.S. Dept. of Energy Technical Information Center, Springeld, VA, USA. Calhoun, D., Overstreet, R., 1994. Sensitivity analysis of a dynamical system using C++. Scientic Computing 2, 157169. Coastal Engineering Research Center, 1984. Shore Protection Manual 1, U.S. Government Printing Ofce, Washington DC. Delvigne, G.A.L., Sweeney, C.E., 1988. Natural dispersion of oil. Oil and Chemical Pollution 4, 281310.

W. Lehr et al. / Environmental Modelling & Software 17 (2002) 191199

199

Ding, L., Farmer, D.M., 1994. Observations of breaking wave statistics. Journal of Physical Oceanography 24, 13681387. Eley, D.D., Hey, M.J., Symonds, J.D., 1988. Emulsions of water in asphaltene-containing spills 1. Droplet size distribution and emulsication rates. Colloids and Surfaces 32, 87101. Elliot, A.J., Hurford, N., Penn, C.J., 1986. Shear diffusion and the spreading of oil slicks. Marine Pollution Bulletin 17, 308313. Elliot, A.J., Hurford, N., 1989. The inuence of wind and wave shear on the spreading of a plume at sea. Oil and Chemical Pollution 5, 347363. Evans, M., Lehr. B., Wesley, D., Simecek-Beatty, D.,1999. Why spill response software should emulate a re extinguisher. Proceedings of the 1999 International Oil Spill Conference, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, DC, pp. 6367. Fallah, M.H., Stark, R.M., 1976. Literature review: movement of spilled oil at sea. Marine Technology Society Journal 10, 318. Fay, J. A., 1971. Physical processes in the spread of oil on a water surface. Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Prevention and Control of Oil Spill, American Petroleum Institute, Washington, DC, pp. 463467. Fingas, M., Fieldhouse, B., Mullin, J.,1996. Studies of water-in-oil emulsions: the role of asphaltenes and resins, Proceedings of the Nineteenth Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar, Environment Canada, Emergencies Science Division, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, pp. 7388. Green, P.J., Sibson, R., 1978. Computing Dirichlet tessellations in the plane. Computer Journal 21, 168173. Holthuijsen, L. H., Herbers, T.H., 1986. Statistics of breaking waves observed as whitecaps in the open sea, Journal of Physical Oceanography 16, 290297. Johansen, O., 1991. Numerical modeling of physical properties of weathered North Sea crude oils. Diwo Report No. 15, IKU-Sintef Group, Trondheim, Norway, 18 pp. Jones, R., Simecek-Beatty, D., Lehr, W., Overstreet, R., 1994. Oil spill weathering models: theory versus practice. Proceedings of the Conference on Simulation of Emergency Management, Society for Computer Simulation, San Diego, California, pp. 5659. Jones, R.K., 1997. A simplied pseudocomponent oil evaporation model. Proceedings of the Twentieth Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar, Environment Canada, Emergencies Science Division, Ottawa, Canada pp. 4361. Lehr, W.J., Cekirge, H.M., Fraga, R.J., Belen, M.S., 1984. Empirical studies of the spreading of oil spills. Oil and Petrochemical Pollution 2, 712. Lehr, W.J., Galt, J., Overstreet, R., 1995, Handling uncertainty in oil spill modeling, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar, Environment Canada, Emergencies Science Division, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, pp. 759768. Lehr, W.J., 1996. Modeling the benzene inhalation hazard from spilled oil. Spill Science and Technology 3, 199202.

Lehr, W., Galt, J., Watabayashi, G., Semershein, J., 1996. Tracking the North Cape spill. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program (AMOP) Technical Seminar, Environment Canada, Emergencies Science Division, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, pp. 14791487. Lehr W.J., Overstreet, R., 1998. Smoke plume screening tool for insitu burning. In: Garcia-Martinez, R., Brebbia, C. A., (Eds.), Oil and Hydrocarbon Spills, Modelling, Analysis and Control, WIT Press, Southampton, UK, pp. 121132. Lehr, W.J., Simecek-Beatty, D., 2000. The relation of Langmuir circulation processes to the standard oil spill spreading, dispersion, and transport algorithms. Spill Science and Technology Bulletin 6, 247253. Lyman, W.J., Reehl, W.F., Rosenblatt, D.H., 1990. Handbook of Chemical Property Estimation Methods, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC. Mackay, D., Buist, I., Mascarenhas, R., Patterson, S., 1980. Oil Spill Processes and Models, Environment Canada, Ottawa, Canada. Mackay, D., Shiu, W.Y., Hossain, K., Stiver, W., McCurdy, D., Petterson, S., Tebeau, P. A., 1983. Development and Calibration of an Oil Spill Behavior Model, Report No. CG-D-27-83, United States Coast Guard Ofce of Research and Development, Groton, Conn., USA. Monahan, E., 1971. Oceanic whitecaps. Journal of Physical Oceanography 1, 139144. Monahan, E., OMuircheartaigh, I., 1980. Optimal power-law description of oceanic whitecap coverage dependence on wind speed, Journal of Physical Oceanography 10, 20942099. Overstreet, R., Lewandowski, A., Lehr, W., Jones, R., Simecek-Beatty, D., Calhoun, D., 1995. Sensitivity analysis in oil spill models: Case study using ADIOS. Proceedings of the 1995 International Oil Spill Conference, American Petroleum Institute, Washington DC, pp. 898900. Payne, J.R., Kirstein, B.E., Clayton, J.R., Clary, C., Redding, R., McNabb, D., Farmer, G., 1987. Integration of Suspended Particulate Matter and Oil Transportation Study. Final Report, Report No. MMS 87-0083, U.S. Minerals Management Service, Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Regnier, Z.R., Scott, B.F., 1975. Evaporation rates of oil components. Environmental Science and Technology 9, 469472. Stiver, W., Mackay, D., 1984. Evaporation rate of spills of hydrocarbons and Petroleum mixtures. Environment Science. and Technology 18, 834840. Thorpe, S.A., 1995. On the meandering and dispersion of a plume of oating particles caused by Langmuir circulation and a mean current. Journal of Physical Oceanography 25, 685690. Thorpe, S.A., Humphries, P.N., 1980. Bubbles and breaking waves. Nature 283, 463465. Toba, J., Kunishi H., Shimada,Y., Shibata, N., 1971. Study on air-sea boundary processes at the Shirahama Oceanographic Town Station. Kyoto University Annals 148, 519531.