Numerical integrations with the Mike 3 model started on 1 January 2008 and were initialized with mean winter seasonal fields of temperature and salinity at standard oceanographic levels from the Dartmouth Adriatic Data Base (DADB). The DADB data base is constructed from two existing data sets (Galos 2000): the Mediterranean Oceanographic Data Base and the Adriatic Sea Temperature, Oxygen and Salinity Data Set (Cushman-Roisin et al. 2007). Interpolation

selleck chemicals llc and extrapolation of T and S values from the data sets on the numerical nodes of the Mike 3 model ( Figure 3) were performed with the use of objective analysis ( Bretherton & Fauday 1976). The turbulent closure model used within Mike 3 relies on a k-ε formulation in the vertical direction ( Rodi 1987) and in the

horizontal direction ( Smagorinsky 1993). In the model parameterization we used the very same values as in the previously completed study ( Andročec et al. 2009), with regard to the sea circulation, where the same Mike 3 numerical model system was applied to the same spatial domain. Sensitivity analysis and more detailed validation of the numerical model results were also included in the work by Andročec et al. (2009). In addition to the values adopted from previous studies (dispersion coefficients for T, S, k and ε), the model’s parameterization relies on literature-referenced values without their overall influence on the numerical model results being examined: 0.00123 selleck for the wind friction coefficient ( Wu 1994), a = 0.25 and b = 0.52 for the correlative coefficients in Angstrom’s law ( Zaninović et al. 2008), 0.5 and 0.9 for the wind constant and the evaporation coefficient in Dalton’s law respectively. The heat flux absorption profile in the

short-wave radiation is described by a modified version of Beer’s law. The values adopted were 0.2 for the energy absorption coefficient in the surface layer and 0.1 for the light decay coefficient in the vertical direction. The convective-dispersive component of the oil transport module was established by means of the Lagrangian discrete particles approach. The displacement of each Lagrangian particle is given by the Methisazone sum of an advective deterministic and a stochastic component, the latter representing the chaotic nature of the flow field, the sub-grid turbulent dispersion. The movement of Lagrangian particles due to advection in a three-dimensional current field is described by the following ordinary differential equation: equation(1) dx→pdt=υ→x→pt, where υ→ is the vector velocity with components (u  , v  , w  ) in the x  , y   and z   directions, and x→p is the coordinate of the particle in the three directions. The velocity field relies on the results of the current field, obtained by simulation with the Mike 3 sea circulation model.