Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident of a massive blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists from government, industry, and academia collaborated to advance oil spill modeling and share best practices in model algorithms, parameterizations, and application protocols. This synergy was greatly enhanced by research funded under the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), a 10-year enterprise that allowed unprecedented collection of observations and data products, novel experiments, and international collaborations that focused on the Gulf of Mexico, but resulted in the generation of scientific findings and tools of broader value. Operational oil spill modeling greatly benefited from research during the GoMRI decade. This paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of the related scientific advances, remaining challenges, and future outlook. Two main modeling components are discussed: Ocean circulation and oil spill models, to provide details on all attributes that contribute to the success and limitations of the integrated oil spill forecasts. These forecasts are discussed in tandem with uncertainty factors and methods to mitigate them. The paper focuses on operational aspects of oil spill modeling and forecasting, including examples of international operational center practices, observational needs, communication protocols, and promising new methodologies.

In coastal environments, evaporation is an important driver of subsurface salinity gradients in marsh systems. However, it has not been addressed in the intertidal zone of sandy beaches. Here, we used field data on an estuarine beach foreshore with numerical simulations to show that evaporation causes upper intertidal zone pore-water salinity to be double that of seawater. We found the increase in pore-water salinity mainly depends on air temperature and relative humidity and tide and wave actions dilute a fraction of the high salinity plume, resulting in a complex process. This is in contrast to previous studies that consider seawater as the most saline source to a coastal aquifer system, thereby concluding that seawater infiltration always increases pore-water salinity by seawater-groundwater mixing dynamics. Our results demonstrate the combined effects of evaporation and tide and waves on subsurface salinity distribution on a beach face. We anticipate our quantitative investigation will shed light on the studies of salt-affected biological activities in the intertidal zone. It also impacts our understanding of the impact of global warming; in particular, the increase in temperature does not only shift the saltwater landward, but creates a different salinity distribution that would have implications on intertidal biological zonation.