Abstract:

In this dataset, we used a multi-sensor day and night satellite approach to track the SANCHI oil tanker collision and oil spill event in January 2018 in the East China Sea. The drifted on fire oil tanker was tracked by Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nightfire product and Day/Night Band (DNB) imagery. Such pathway and locations were also reproduced with a numerical model, with RMS error of < 15 km. MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) optical imagery during daytime shows smokes on 13 January 2018, further confirms the drifted tanker location. MSI imagery after 4 days of the tanker’s sinking (18 January 2018) reveals oil on the ocean surface to the east and northeast of the tanker sinking location. This combination of all available remote sensing and modeling techniques can provide effective means to monitor marine accidents and oil spills to assist event response.

Suggested Citation:

Shaojie Sun. 2018. Dataset for: Tracking an oil tanker collision and spilled oils in the East China Sea using multisensor day and night satellite imagery. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N7639N85

Publications:

Sun, S., Lu, Y., Liu, Y., Wang, M., & Hu, C. (2018). Tracking an Oil Tanker Collision and Spilled Oils in the East China Sea Using Multisensor Day and Night Satellite Imagery. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(7), 3212–3220. doi:10.1002/2018gl077433

Purpose:

This dataset was used to track the SANCHI oil tanker collision and oil spill event in January 2018 in the East China Sea from a multi-sensor day and night satellite approach.

Data Parameters and Units:

“Modeled_tanker_trajectory” folder contains a summary of the time and locations for each data point output from the modeled trajectories with a time step of 15 minutes. The tanker’s drifting pathway was simulated using Global HYCOM daily surface currents and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis daily wind data (10 m above sea level). HYCOM surface currents data were obtained from the Global Reanalysis (expt. 91.2). A Runge-Kutta fourth-order method with a wind factor of 4.1% was used to model the tanker trajectories with a time step of 15 min. Variables include Time (Beijing time=UTC+ 8 hours), Latitude (Dec. Deg. N), Longitude (Dec. Deg. E) “MSI_Rrc_Data” contains the Sentinel-2A MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) imagery (Level-1C) for January 13, 2018 and January 18, 2018. The imagery for 13 January 2018 showed smokes and 18 January 2018 showed oil slicks. Image dates are indicated in the nc file name. The folder contains the full MSI files in netCDF format and a quick view true color (R: 664 nm, G: 560 nm, B: 497 nm) geotiff files. The netCDF files contain latitude (dec. deg.), longitude (dec. deg.) and Rayleigh-corrected reflectance (RRC; dimensionless) at the following wavelengths (nm): 444, 497, 560, 664, 704, 740, 782, 835, 865, 945, 1373, 1614, 2202. This data was produced at a ground sampling distance of 10m. “Oil Spectra” contains one excel file with the Rayleigh-corrected reflectance (Rrc) spectra of the oil emulsion in the slick, reflectance spectra of water and the difference between oil and water extracted from the S2A_OPER_MSI_L1C_TL_SGS__20180118T073758_A013442_T52RBS_N02.06_L2.nc. The spectra were extracted at the center pixel of 28.6741 N and 126.2444 E. “SHP” contains two shapefiles: (1) tanker_location_from_viirs.shp with all tanker location points that derived from VIIRS Nightfire products and the reported tanker sinking location. The properties of the VIIRS Nightfire fire source area and temperature are included in the shapefiles properties. (2)'Oil_slick_delineations.shp' includes the two slicks that delineated from MSI images on 18 January 2018. The oil slick areas in unit of square km are included in the shapefile properties. VIIRS_DNB contains the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nightfire product and Day/Night Band (DNB) imagery radiance from 7-14 January 2018 in UTC and geotiff format. The UTC dates are indicated in Day of Year in the file names. The VIIRS Day/Night Band SDR calibrated radiance data were downloaded from NOAA/Class and then re-projected to a rectangular projection with a spatial resolution of 500 meters. The radiance unit is: uW cm^-2 sr^-1

Individual Files: