On the occurence of surface slicks in the ocean

The scope of this report is the occurrence of biogenic surface slicks in various parts of the ocean. The aim is to find a relation between their occurrence and the distance to the coast. Synthetic Aperture Radar images have been used for the analysis. Results show that the occurrence of surface slicks seems to be much lower in the Southern Hemisphere than in the northern. Particularly high occurrence is found in April near land in the North Sea, Mediterranean, Galapagos and Philippines.NERSC Technical Report no. 152. Funded by European Union, Project no. ENV4-CT96-0360 and Research Council of Norway, Project no. 1339722/720