Response to Comment on 'Evolution of the Macondo Well Blowout: Simulating the Effects of the Circulation and Synthetic Dispersants on the Subsea Oil Transport'

摘要

The comments by Adams et al. question the validity of our assumed oil droplet size model, which we deployed within a numerical simulation to describe oil transportation through the water column after blowout. Oil droplet size estimates may be the most significant unknown variable in oil transport studies to date, and require significant experimental attention. As a first approximation, we adapted an experimental droplet size model from Boxall et al., which was derived and validated for water-in-oil droplet dispersions using multiple measurement techniques and shear geometries; we note that this model was validated through inviscid oils (i.e., without a significant difference in viscosity between water and oil phases).