GNOME: NOAA´s next-generation spill trajectory model

The General NOAA Oil Modeling Environment (GNOME) is a new tool developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for oil-spill response. GNOME generates spill scenarios that support the NOAA standard for trajectory output by providing both “best guess” and “minimum regret” solutions. GNOME also serves as a tool for novice users, from high school on up, to learn more about oil-spill trajectories and actually run them. The GNOME model, regional location files, documentation, and training materials are available on the Internet at http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/software/gnome/gnome.html. Training courses are also offered by NOAA HAZMAT. Research is underway on how to effectively use nowcast/forecast models as sources of ocean current fields for the trajectory model. Questions of data size, time-step interpolation, and relevant physics are being investigated to use these models as data fields in GNOME