Meeting Abstracts
A contour-based method for averaging and assimilating the location of oil particles
Arthur J. Mariano, J. M. Restrepo, Shankar Venkataramani, E.H. Ryan
U of Miami/RSMAS
(Abstract received 05/07/2012 for session C)
ABSTRACT
The problem of averaging and assimilating estimates of oil locations is analyzed using data from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A contour-based blending procedure is defined that is very efficient for averaging the location of large oil blobs. The boundaries of the oil blobs are digitized and two sets of boundary points, one set for latitude and one set for longitude are calculated at fixed arc lengths starting at a similar location for each blob. Each blob is segmented by the same large number of boundary points. The contour analysis method (Mariano, 1990) is used to average the position of the boundary points for each set from each blob. A polygon filling algorithm is then used to fill in the interior oil locations at whatever resolution is required. The advantages of using a contour-based method and just the boundary points for averaging and assimilating different estimates of oil blob locations are highlighted.