Model-based long-term reconstruction of weather-driven variations in chronic oil pollution along the German North Sea coast

Lagrangian passive tracer transport simulations covering the 46-year period 1958–2003 were utilized to compare the exposures of different parts of the German North Sea coast to ship-related chronic oil pollution. Assuming the spatial distribution of oil releases to be proportional to estimated ship traffic density, detailed drift reconstructions allowed for the reconstruction of wind-induced inter-annual variations in coastal pollution. For the winter months, a statistical relationship between simulated advective transports and prevailing sea surface pressure fields was established via Canonical Correlation Analysis. Wind effects were found to be more important for the northern (Schleswig-Holstein) than for the southern (Lower Saxony) part of the German North Sea coast. For Schleswig-Holstein, simulations showed consensus with beached bird survey data from this region. Proper identification of weather-driven inter-annual and spatial variations in monitoring data helps to avert misjudgments with regard to trends in the general level of chronic oil pollution.