A surface Lagrangian algorithm applied to the 2019 South Atlantic oil spill

The surface Lagrangian algorithm of the Coupled Model for Oil spill Prediction (CMOP) was applied to investigate the oil spill that hit a vast coastline of Brazil during 2019–2020. Backward and forward in time simulations were performed in order to identify a potential source of the oil leak. Probabilistic analyses of the backtracked trajectories suggested that the oil was released from a mobile source crossing the South Equatorial Current in the NW-SE direction, where tanker routes with oil leaks are plausible. A possible route was chosen and a hypothetical oil spill was simulated forward in time. The results of the hypothetical spill showed good agreement with the shore stranding times reported in official records, confirming that the oil spill may have occurred on a route crossing a broad band of the South Equatorial Current.