ABSTRACT
The accidental introduction of oil into the ocean is clearly on the rise as oil exploration on continental shelves intensifies and supertanker traffic increases each year. This chapter emphasizes the processes controlling the spread of oil at the sea surface. It begins with a brief summary of the time and length scales of weather systems. Weather systems of nearly all sizes and time scales may have strong effects on oil slick movement and dispersal. The chapter considers the oil dispersal problem in terms of the physical and chemical properties of oil on the sea surface. Evaporation, the process by which low to medium molecular weight components of low boiling point are volatized into the atmosphere, is well recognized as a significant factor in the removal of oil from the sea surface. The oil movement model is based upon the two-dimensional mass and linear momentum equations applied to oil as a homogeneous fluid.
