Cantarell natural seep modelling using SAR derived ocean surface wind and meteo- oceanographic buoy data.

The Cantarell Seep is the most significant natural seep discovered in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. The trajectory of the oil seep, driven by sea surface winds and ocean currents, can sometimes impinge on the environmentally sensitive Mexican coast. For this reason it is necessary for the implementation of slick impact models to determine and track oil slick behaviour on sea surface as an aid to contingency planning. The focus of this study was to improve the confidence of the Cantarell natural seep impact model by utilizing SAR derived ocean surface wind field data and in situ meteo-oceanographic buoy data. The advantage of the SAR wind is that the data provides high resolution, wide-area coverage, up to 500 km by 500 km in the case of RADARSAT-1. The accuracies are +/− 2 m/s for wind speed and +/− 25° for wind direction. The buoy is stationary and only provides wind data for that location but the instruments are more sensitive and provide higher accuracies than the SAR. The buoy information is recorded in one-minute intervals, transmitted to shore by microwave communication and the accuracies are +/− 0.7 m/s for wind speed and +/−3° for wind direction. Our approach was to combine the two data sources to provide better coverage and accuracy for oil slick modeling.