Oil Spills: A Guided Tour

3 - Our Computer Models and Tools

For the oceanographers and computer programmers at NOAA OR&R, the work of responding to an oil spill begins long before any tanker or barge ever leaves port. During a spill, our response team relies on computer models and other electronic tools that we have already designed and built. Oceanographers use information from the most important of these models to predict the trajectory of spilled oil. That is, they use the model to predict where spilled oil will go, and how fast it will travel.

The animation below shows our model's prediction of how the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez would travel across Prince William Sound, Alaska, during the first week after that spill started in March 1989. (To see the animation again, just press the Refresh or Reload button on your browser's toolbar.)