Efficient tools for marine operational forecast and oil spill tracking.

Ocean forecasting and oil spill modelling and tracking are complex activities requiring specialised institutions. In this work we present a lighter solution based on the Operational Ocean Forecast Python Engine (OOFε) and the oil spill model General NOAA Operational Modelling Environment (GNOME). These two are robust relocatable and simple to implement and maintain. Implementations of the operational engine in three different regions with distinct oceanic systems, using the ocean model Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS), are described, namely the Galician region, the southeastern Brazilian waters and the Texas-Louisiana shelf. GNOME was able to simulate the fate of the Prestige oil spill (Galicia) and compared well with observations of the Krimsk accident (Texas). Scenarios of hypothetical spills in Campos Basin (Brazil) are illustrated, evidencing the sensitiveness to the dynamical system. OOFε and GNOME are proved to be valuable, efficient and low cost tools and can be seen as an intermediate stage towards more complex operational implementations of ocean forecasting and oil spill modelling strategies.

Occurrence of Magellanic penguins along the Northeast Brazilian coast during 2008 Austral winter.

During the austral winter of 2008, thousands of penguins traveled to low latitudes along the South Atlantic coast of South America. The atmospheric and oceanic conditions from April to July 2008 may account for the penguins' unusual geographic distribution. During that period, South Atlantic coastal waters were cooler; the wind anomalies had northward and onshore components; the ocean's coastal region presented northward currents that favored the penguins to travel toward lower latitudes. This anomalous climate regime resulted from extreme meteorological frontal systems that occurred mainly during June 2008. Three consecutive extreme midlatitude cyclones produced strong wind shear that resulted in the northward oceanic flow along the South American eastern shoreline favoring the penguins to be spotted in northern tropical waters.