《Chronic Oiling in Global Oceans》Science.abm5940 - sm

Supplementary Materials for
Chronic oiling in global oceans
Yanzhu Dong et al.
Corresponding author: Yongxue Liu, yongxue@nju.edu.cn
Science 376, 1300 (2022)

DOI: 10.1126/science.abm5940
The PDF file includes:
Materials and Methods

Figs. S1 to S46
Tables S1 to S6
References
Materials and Methods
1. SAR Data
Oil slicks can dampen capillary waves and short gravity waves and reduce the sea
surface roughness, resulting in lower radar backscatter signals over oil-covered water
than the surroundings and appearing as elongated dark stripes/patches in SAR images
(29). The VV (vertically transmitted and vertically received) single polarization of C-
band SAR at incidence angles of 20°–45° is the most suitable SAR configuration for
oil slick detection (30). The Sentinel-1 C-band (center frequency: 5.405 GHz) SAR
instrument features a wide swath, fine spatial resolution, and improved radiometric
accuracy (1 dB/3σ) (31). Hence, all the Sentinel-1 SAR Level-1 Ground Range
Detected (GRD) images (n = 563,705 scenes, VV-polarization), covering global oceans
from 2014 to 2019 (Fig. S2), were used to search for global oil slicks.
Sentinel-1 twin satellites are designed to support Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security. Sentinel-1A and 1B are in the same orbital plane, and the
latter phase is 180° apart from the former. Sentinel-1A has routinely acquired SAR
images since 3 October 2014, and 1B has acquired images since 25 September 2016. A
single Sentinel-1 satellite has a 12-day repeat cycle at the equator, and the joint revisit
cycle of the two-satellite constellation is every six days. The revisit frequency increases
with latitude and could reach ~two days in European areas. Sentinel-1 operates in four
modes, i.e., Stripmap (SM), Interferometric Wide (IW), Wave (WV), and Extrawide
(EW) (31). In this study, offshore SAR images acquired in IW (250-km swath width)
and EW (400-km swath width) modes account for 97.30% and 2.17%, respectively.
The incident angle of the IW mode ranges from 29.1° to 46.0°, whereas the range of
the EW mode is 18.9°–47.0° (31). The pixel size of the Level-1 GRD images is
processed to 10×10 m2 in IW mode and 25×25 m2 or 40×40 m2 in EW mode.
A total offshore area of 1.50×108 km2 was observed at least once by Sentinel-1
SAR (VV-polarization) during 2014–2019, and the sum of the offshore observation
areas reached 1.52×1010 km2 with an average daily area of 8.0×106 km2 (Fig. S3). The
maximum offshore observation frequency (the overlapping observations between
sequential images along an orbit track were only counted once) is 1,442, and the mean
value is 112. The waters within 300 km of the coastlines have more frequent
observations (86.2% of all SAR observations) than waters further away. Note that the
previously reported natural seepages generally occur within the continental shelves
(32). Statistically, ~78% of the global continental shelves (2.99×107 km2) are frequently
covered by Sentinel-1 SAR images (the mean observation frequency is 226); the seldom
covered continental shelves are mainly distributed around Greenland, northern Siberia,
and Antarctica, where natural seeps are rarely reported, and marine traffic is light. We
also note that almost all offshore oil/gas development areas are densely observed,
except for only a small part of the water off the coast of northwest Australia (Fig. S2A).
In addition, the Caspian Sea, which is generally regarded as the world's largest lake or
a full-fledged sea, is included, whereas lakes with inlets to the seas (e.g., Lake
Maracaibo, the area is observed to be severely infested with duckweed from SAR
images of 2014–2019) are excluded from statistics.
The detectability of oil slicks from SAR images depends on weather conditions,
especially wind speeds (33). Generally, using SAR images, the optimal wind speeds for
oil slick detection are ~1.5 to 10 m s−1 (34). For areas at low wind speeds (<1.5 m s−1),
it is possible to confuse oil slicks with low wind speed areas because they both appear
as dark features; for areas at high wind speeds (>10 m s−1), waves induced by winds
can break up oil into smaller droplets and prevent the effective detection of oil slicks
(33, 35). To understand the potential influence of unfavorable wind conditions on oil
slick detection, we mapped the occurrence frequencies (OFs) of these two extremes
based on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) wind field data
(every six hours) from 2014 to 2019 (Fig. S33). Generally, low wind speeds are
infrequent over almost all offshore regions, except off the coast of Panama and
Colombia (OF = 0.24). Likewise, high wind speeds with an OF of >0.2 only occur in
the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, Greenland Sea, and off the coast of California (the U.S.).
Detailed information is given in Table S3.
2. Ancillary Data
Additional datasets were used to assist in the discrimination of oil slicks in SAR
images, including (1) marine environmental data, such as bathymetry data, time-series
of wind, precipitation, sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll concentration, and
coarse-resolution optical images (i.e., Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS)) during 2014–2019; and (2) human activity data, such as offshore oil/gas
platforms (Fig. S34), pipelines, boreholes/wells (Fig. S35), and the Visible Infrared
Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) boat detection (VBD) data. Detailed information is
given in Table S2.
3. Oil Slick Extraction
Dark features in SAR images can also be caused by various natural phenomena
(generally called look-alikes) (36), including biogenic slicks, leeward sides of
lands/islands and other low wind speed areas, rainfall areas, internal waves, upwelling,
fronts, shear zones, and grease ice (Fig. S36). However, oil slicks are distinctive from
other surface slicks regarding their positions, appearances, and spatial contexts. The
human visual system has the natural powers of visual perception, semantic reasoning,
and combinatorial generalization, and experienced interpreters can discriminate most
oil slicks from look-alikes based on these characteristics. The level of confidence in
identifying oil slicks can be further improved with the help of ancillary information
(36). Considering the interpretation accuracy and efficiency and the massive SAR data
volume involved, we proposed a semiautomatic oil slick extraction method (i.e.,
"manual determination of oil slicks + automatic segmentation of oil slicks") to establish
a global offshore oil slick inventory, which consists of the following steps.
(1) Manual identification of oil slicks (Fig. S37A). It is impractical to download
all offshore SAR images at the native resolution because of the massive data volume.
However, based on our analysis of 1,037 scenes over different known oil seep areas,
we found that oil slicks >0.05 km2 in size can be easily and robustly discerned from
SAR images with a degraded resolution (100 m). Hence, we batch downloaded all the
offshore SAR images at the degraded resolution (100 m) from the Google Earth Engine
(GEE), a petabyte-scale cloud computing platform that hosts all Sentinel-1 family
images (37). Then, we exported the degraded SAR images to preview images (portable
network graph format) and manually marked oil slicks in the preview pictures using the
VGG Image Annotator (VIA) (38). The manual identification of global oil slicks
(including the two-round consistency verification, Section 6) was conducted by one
interpreter following the judgment criteria listed in Table S4. Note that (i) we used
points to present the location of oil slicks rather than delineating their shapes directly;
(ii) we placed only one point on the largest slick where several oil slicks are spatially
adjacent; and (iii) the points were labeled with either high confidence or ambiguity.
For each point labeled as ambiguity, we integrated the SAR images and ancillary
data to export a diagnostic picture for further confirmation. Specifically, the diagnostic
picture is composed of six subpictures, including a zoomed-in SAR image with the
label point in the center, a thumbnail view of the whole SAR image with the label point
and platforms/pipelines to provide contextual information, four insets of SST,
chlorophyll-a, MODIS true-color image acquired at the nearest time, and submarine
topography. The NCEP wind field before/after the overpass time of the SAR image was
also drawn on the topography inset. The interpreter examined all the diagnostic pictures
to reach a decision. When ancillary data were missing, the judgments were made based
on the majority rule. The final number of labeled oil slick points is 452,057 (Fig. S1).
(2) Automatic segmentation of oil slicks (Fig. S37B). After determining the
positions of oil slicks, we delineated their boundaries from the native-resolution image
chips using computer-based automatic algorithms. We sampled 4,929 oil slicks
(4,647,446 oil pixels) from the Sentinel-1 SAR VV images over six offshore areas (Fig.
S38). Statistically, almost all the signal values of oil pixels are <-21 dB, and the
damping between oil slicks and their surrounding water ranges from 3 dB to 30 dB,
with a peak at ~5.8 dB for 99% of the sampled oil pixels (Fig. S38). Hence, a mean
filter algorithm (a spatial filter that replaces the center pixel value with the average of
all pixels in the sliding window) (radius = 2 km) was performed on the VV image to
calculate its mean background backscatter signal, and two fixed thresholds (-21 dB and
3 dB) were applied to the VV image and the difference image (mean image - VV image)
to segment dark features from backgrounds. Notably, to mitigate false segmentations
due to the influence of adjacent bright features (e.g., lands/islands or ships/platforms
on the sea surface), high backscatter signal values (>-15 dB) were replaced by the mean
background value before the mean filtering. Moreover, large slicks may not be
segmented entirely due to the fixed-size sliding window used in the mean filtering. For
Sentinel-1 images that are overlaid with oil slick label points derived in Step 1, the
segmentation of oil slick candidates was conducted at two scales: (i) a coarse-scale
segmentation was performed on the upscaled SAR images (cell size: 100 m, resampled
and downloaded via the GEE) to obtain the rough extents and bounding boxes (the
distance from the outer rectangles of oil slicks, which is 0.5 km) of oil slicks; and (ii) a
fine-scale segmentation was implemented on the original SAR image chips (native
resolution, downloaded from the GEE using the bounding boxes), and then, holes of
large candidates were filled in the fine-scale binary segmentation. To avoid too much
noise, we sieved the segmented dark features smaller than 0.005 km2. Relevant
information about the confirmed oil slicks, such as the spatial extent (the overlapping
portions of oil slick polygons detected from the same-day images were counted only
once), area, overpassing date, and the affiliated image name, were integrated into a
spatial inventory.
4. Oil Slick Classification
Oil slicks on the sea surface generally last in the time scale of ~day to a week (1),
depending on marine hydrodynamics (21), weather conditions (29), and the properties
of the oil (30). For oil slicks from natural seeps, their life spans are typically 6.4 h (±5.7
h) in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) (26), and the median value can be as short as 3.25 h in
the Lower Congo Basin (21). Hence, the repeated oil slicks in identical localities can
robustly indicate discharges from natural seepages or static anthropogenic sources (e.g.,
pipeline ruptures and platforms) (2, 26). From the aspect of a highly-frequent time
series of SAR observations, oil slicks from a static and persistently discharged source
form distinct aggregation patterns—they converge spatially around a center and
elongate in different or given directions under the effect of surface winds and currents
(Fig. S20). The pattern is visually identified from the accumulative time-series oil slick
detections, and each oil slick aggregation is manually labeled with only one aggregation
center.
Furthermore, we classified the labeled aggregation centers as platform slick
centers (PSCs) and pipeline slick centers (PiSCs) according to their proximity (i.e., the
distance is ≤2 km) to the offshore oil/gas platforms and pipelines (Fig. S37C). We
examined the image time-series of PSCs to ensure that they are closely related to
platforms (Figs. S21–S28). The remaining aggregation centers that were neither
adjacent to platforms nor pipelines were regarded as natural seep centers (NSCs).
Admittedly, in the GoM (Fig. S19B) and the Lower Congo Basin (Fig. S19C), the
numbers of NSCs identified are slightly lower than those in previous studies (2, 21),
which can be attributed to the identification approaches used: we determined NSCs
based on the oil slick aggregation patterns rather than identifying oil slick origins, and
thus, each NSC may represent a cluster of nearby origins. Note that offshore
aquaculture net cages can produce biogenic slicks, which are different from oil slicks
(mineral hydrocarbons); therefore, we excluded them from our analysis.
The most important factors that determine the rate of oil slick movement are the
strength of surface winds and currents (39). Empirically, oil released from a static point
source drifts with approximately 3–3.5% of the wind speed (39) (often called
"windage"), whereas strong surface currents can either deflect an oil slick in an
opposing direction from the wind or elongate it in the same direction as the wind (29).
Assuming that the sea surface wind of 10 m s-1 lasts for 12 h and the windage is 3.5%,
the maximum drift distance of an oil slick will be ~15 km. Here, we determined all the
oil slicks within a radius of 15 km from the aggregation centers as discharges from
natural seeps, platforms, or pipelines. Then, we calculated each aggregation center's oil
slick detection rate, i.e., the ratio of the oil slick detection frequency to the mean SAR
data frequency (Fig. S39).
It is challenging to differentiate between oil slicks from ships and land-based
discharges because they are both dark features in SAR images and frequently occur in
the nearshore waters, where ships, industrial facilities, and terrestrial runoffs converge.
To avoid possible confusion, we combined all the remaining oil slicks from ships and
land-based discharges into one category (i.e., oil slicks from other anthropogenic
sources) (Fig. S40A). Furthermore, we visually inspected 21 high-density belts in the
oil slick gridded map of 2014–2019 (Section 5), coinciding well with shipping routes
(Fig. 3B–G and Fig. S41) and 82,982 elongated and linear oil slicks in the SAR images
(Fig. S42). We deemed these oil slicks as from ship discharges with high confidence,
and they account for at least 19.78% of global detections (Fig. S40B). In future works,
a further classification between oil slicks from ships and land-based discharges is
needed, with the aid of ancillary data, e.g., Automatic Identification System (AIS) data
and locations of coastal industrial facilities and runoffs.
The contributions of different oil slick sources can be calculated by summing the
oil slick areas by category and then dividing by the total oil slick area. Taking the
diverse area and observation area of each region into account, we also determined the
area weights (i.e., the ratio of region area to total global area) and observation area
weights (i.e., the ratio of observation area in the region to the total global observation
area). The weighted proportions of different oil slick sources were calculated using
these two types of weights (Tables S5–S6).
5. Oil Slick Spatial Analysis
We used three methods to demonstrate the spatial patterns of oil slicks (Fig. S43):
(1) According to distance statistics. To precisely measure the distances of oil slicks
to coastlines, we first converted oil slick binary images to points, and each point
represents the center position of its corresponding cell (pixel). Then, we calculated the
distances of the points to coastlines. Finally, we accumulated the geometric areas of oil
slicks at a 1-km resolution according to distances.
(2) According to region statistics. The global distribution of oil slicks is presented
by dividing the global offshore waters into 31 regions (Fig. S4) based on the marine
zoning system of Encyclopedia Britannica (40). The spatio-temporal coverage of SAR
images varies significantly (Fig. S2); therefore, to make different offshore regions
comparable, a normalization of the detected oil slicks by region is needed. The
normalization includes the following steps: (i) calculate the total coverage area of time-
series SAR images per region (Si). Note that overlapped areas of sequential images
along an orbit track were only counted once. (ii) calculate the average SAR observation
frequency per region (Fi), which is the ratio of the total coverage area per region to the
region area; (iii) calculate the total oil slick area per region (Ai). The overlapped oil
slicks detected from sequential images along an orbit track were counted once. And (iv)
normalize oil slick area per region, which is the ratio of the total oil slick area (A i) to
the average observation frequency (Fi).
(3) According to gridded statistics. Compiling the global oil slick inventory into a
gridded dataset can help convey more detailed information about the hotspots of global
oil slicks. We first created a 0.1°×0.1° grid and matched the oil slick polygons with the
grid cells according to their spatial intersection relationship. We summarized the oil
slick area in each cell (Fig. S5). Because of the varying SAR data coverage, we further
normalized the oil slick areas by SAR data frequency. The normalization by cell is
similar to the above region-based normalization, and the only difference lies in the
processing unit: 0.1°×0.1° cell for the grid-based and polygon for the region-based
normalization.
6. Limitations and Uncertainties
To build a global picture of oil slicks on the sea surface, we utilized all Sentinel-1
SAR images and a step-wise approach to combine semi-objective (visual interpretation
+ objective delineation) oil slick identification, analysis of multi-source ancillary data,
sensitivity analysis, consistency evaluation, and normalization. Even so, given the
nature of oil slicks and the SAR data, and various factors influencing the detection
accuracy, the derived global picture is not immune from limitations and uncertainties,
which can be summarized as follows:
(1) SAR data coverage. The lack of SAR images over open oceans leads to no oil
slick information in these areas. A rough estimate shows that ~20.02% (Fig. S44) of
ship locations in global oceans were not covered by SAR, and in these areas, ship
discharges can overwhelm other sources in the total oil slick budget. We note that the
lack of SAR coverage is unlikely to impact the slick estimates from natural seeps and
offshore oil/gas development, as all the previously reported seep zones (20) and ~99%
of offshore oil/gas development areas (25) have been covered frequently by SAR.
Therefore, if the potentially "missing" slicks in open-ocean waters were to be added to
the global calculations, the proportion of anthropogenic sources in the total slick
estimates would be higher than the current estimate.
(2) Unfavorable wind conditions. Under extreme wind conditions (i.e., <1.5 m s-1
or >10 m s-1), oil slicks may not be detected effectively from SAR images (33, 34). On
the global scale, the mean OFs of low and high winds are 0.03 and 0.22, respectively
(Fig. S33), suggesting that our results may have underestimated ~25% of oil slicks if
all slicks are evenly distributed in both space and time. Currently, the total area of oil
slicks detected in this study is 1.51×106 km2, and the undetected oil slicks due to the
unfavorable wind conditions could be 5.03×105 km2. On the regional scales, the wind-
induced uncertainties peak in the South China Sea (Fig. S45), where the mean OFs of
low and high winds are 0.12 and 0.09, respectively (Table S3), and an oil slick area of
2.33×102 km2 per full-coverage observation may be underestimated accordingly.
Similarly, an oil slick area of 2.02×102 km2 per full-coverage observation may be
underestimated in the Java Sea (Fig. S45).
(3) Detection limit on oil slick size. The method used in this study was designed
to enhance the detection efficiency and to robustly delineate boundaries of most oil
slicks over 563,705 Sentinel-1 images. However, tiny oil slicks (<0.05 km2 in size)
could be easily omitted in the step of manual determination due to the degraded
resolution (100×100 m2) in the analyzed SAR images. According to our sensitivity
analysis through inspection of >1,000 scenes of SAR images at the native resolution
(10×10 m2), the oil slick area could be underestimated by ~6.65% due to the omission
of tiny oil slicks. Hence, we estimated that a total of 1.08×105 km2 of tiny oil slicks
might have been omitted, in addition to the current detected slick area of 1.51×106 km2.
(4) Uncertainties in manual identification. Due to the ephemeral and errant nature
of oil slicks, it is challenging to validate the accuracy of the global oil slick inventory.
Here, a consistency check was used to estimate the uncertainties in identified oil slicks.
In the consistency check, we conducted two rounds of oil slick identification from
randomly selected 5,637 scenes of SAR images. The selected scenes account for 1% of
all offshore SAR images used in this study, and their coverage area (2.60×108 km2)
accounts for 1.71% of the total SAR coverage (1.52×1010 km2). The areas of oil slicks
detected in the two rounds show a strong linear correlation (Fig. S46). The area
differences between the two rounds show a typical long-tailed distribution, and the
mean and maximum differences are 0.45 km2 and 46.13 km2 (owing to the
misidentification of low wind speed areas). In the density plot (Fig. S46), although there
are some scattered points with extreme differences between the two rounds, most of the
points fall along the 1:1 line, indicating a low inconsistency ratio of 11.04%. Therefore,
the uncertainties in the global oil slicks were estimated to be 1.67×105 km2 (11.04%),
or 2.54×105 km2 (16.81%) by the image-number-ratio (1%), or 1.48×105 km2 (9.82%)
by the coverage-ratio (1.71%). Indeed, both omission and commission errors were
unavoidable in each round of oil slick identification, because (i) the identification is
somewhat subjective even with the support of multi-source ancillary data; (ii) the
determination is influenced by several factors, including physical/psychological states
and working hours/times of the interpreter, and (iii) ancillary data are unavailable in
some cases. However, the actual errors should be bounded by the inconsistency
measures (i.e., 9.82%–16.81%), thus are unlikely to alter our conclusions based on the
total global estimates.
(5) Uncertainties in the oil slick aggregation centers. The frequent SAR
observations enable us to identify recurrent oil slicks from seeps, platforms, or pipelines.
In this study, the mean number of SAR observations over the aggregation centers
identified is ~250, or >180, considering the influence of unfavorable wind conditions
(Fig. S20), which is sufficient for detecting recurrent oil slicks. Furthermore, compared
with previously reported numbers (20), the locations of natural seeps detected in this
study are almost double due to the frequent SAR observations. Admittedly, this study
may have missed aggregation centers with low recurrent rates, but their numbers should
be limited. The potentially omitted aggregation centers may be revealed with enhanced
multi-source time-series satellite observations in the future.
For the 111 PSCs identified in this study, their confirmation is robust: the oil slicks
were connected to platforms (bright spots in the SAR images), as shown in Figs. S21–
S28. For the 435 NSCs identified, their general locations coincide well with the known
seep zones or far away from the offshore platforms and the pipelines. However, for the
26 PiSCs we determined, there exist some uncertainties: the 18 PiSCs (Fig. S29A) in
the north-central GoM are in close proximity to pipelines (mean distance = 0.98 km)
and not far from the known natural seep locations (mean distance = 14.23 km), and
three of these 18 PiSCs happen to occur near pipeline intersections. However, we have
no direct evidence to prove whether they are due to pipeline failure or natural seeps.
The remnant eight PiSCs (two in the North Sea, one in the Gulf of Guinea, and five in
the Gulf of Mexico) are not located in the known seepage zones and should be robust
(Fig. S29B and C). Nevertheless, oil slicks from all PiSCs account for only ~0.5% of
the global total, and the uncertainties caused by them will not alter our finding that
anthropogenic sources overwhelmingly dominate global oil slicks.
(6) Invisible oil. Regardless of what satellite data or method is used, oil droplets
in the water column may not be detected on a large scale, especially at low
concentrations. Likewise, the satellite footprint does not necessarily capture the entire
extent of oil slicks (4). The "missed" oil may also have immediate adverse biological
effects on marine ecosystem functioning (5). Therefore, the oil slicks estimated in this
study represent a conservative estimation of oil pollution in the marine environment,
and further investigation of invisible and toxic oil is needed.
In summary, the findings in this study are subject to uncertainties from various
sources. Nevertheless, the uncertainties are relatively small and will unlikely alter the
main conclusions, especially after normalizing the slick estimates to available
observations at both regional and global scales.
7. Data and Code Availability
The codes used in this study are available from the corresponding author upon
request. All data acquired or used in this analysis are available from the links in Table
S2.
Supplementary Figures
Fig. S1. Global Distribution of oil slick label points (n = 452,057) from Sentinel-
1A/1B SAR images acquired from 3 October 2014 to 31 December 2019. (A) The
blue lines represent the division of offshore areas. The sizes of gray points correspond
to the number of oil slick label points in each offshore area. (B–O) The enlarged views
of areas marked by black dashed boxes in (A).
Fig. S2. Sentinel-1A/B offshore observation frequency. (A) Observation frequency
of offshore Sentinel-1A/B VV images (80°S–80°N, 180°W–180°E) acquired from 3
October 2014 to 31 December 2019. The total number of SAR images is 563,705
5 scenes. Note that the overlapped areas of multi-images acquired on the same day were
only counted once. (B) The enlarged view across the European and the North African
offshore regions. (C–H) Sentinel-1 offshore observation frequency of 2014–2019 by
year. Each inset shares the same color bar and mapping scale.
Fig. S3. Daily statistics of Sentinel-1A/B offshore observations. (A) The number of Sentinel-1 images per day from 3 October 2014 to 31
December 2019. The extremely high values are caused by multiple process versions of an identical image. (B) The daily offshore area observed
by Sentinel-1 VV images during the same period. Note that the two satellites (Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B) were successively launched on 3 April
5 2014 and 25 April 2016, and Sentinel-1B started to acquire images on 25 September 2016, which has dramatically enhanced the data availability
of Sentinel-1. The average and standard deviation of observation area during the two-satellite period (i.e., 1.08×107 and 1.77×106 km2) can more
than double compared to those of the previous period (i.e., 3.28×106 and 1.18×106 km2).
Fig. S4. Global marine zoning system. We divided the global offshore area into 31
regions (the oceans have been excluded). The division system refers to that recorded in
the Encyclopedia Britannica (40), and we added some regional adjustments according
5 to the presentation needs. For example, the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea are
neighboring, and therefore we merged the two areas into one.
Fig. S5. Global Distribution of oil slicks (2014–2019). (A) The cumulative area of oil
slicks detected from Sentinel-1 SAR images is mapped in a 0.1°×0.1°grid. (B–C) The
enlarged views of areas marked by white dashed circles in (A).
Fig. S6. Locations of offshore aquaculture pollution centers found in this study.
(A–N) The 14 aggregation centers (yellow circles) related to offshore aquaculture in
the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and off the coast of China. The structures and
5 arrangement of net cages can be observed from the Sentinel-2 MSI true-color images.
Fig. S7. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Gulf of Mexico. (A) The
distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in this area. The color of points represents
their oil slick detection rates. (B–L) The enlarged views of areas marked by letters in
5 (A). One PSC in inset (B) is the site of a persistent spill that continued during 2004–
2019 after the MC-20 platform was destroyed by a hurricane. The NSCs, PSCs, and
PiSCs are shown as purple circles, blue squares, and cyan diamonds. The base map is
the accumulation results of time-series oil slick extraction. The contents of Figs. S8–
S18 are similar to this figure.
Fig. S8. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Gulf of Guinea and
surroundings.
Fig. S9. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Caspian Sea.
Fig. S10. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers off the coasts of Ecuador and
Peru.
Fig. S11. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Caribbean Sea.
Fig. S12. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Red Sea and the Gulf
of Aden.
Fig. S13. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers off the coast of California,
the U.S.
Fig. S14. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the North Sea and the
Norwegian Sea.
Fig. S15. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Mediterranean Sea
and the Black Sea. It should be noted that the NSC adjacent to the Civitanova Marche
in inset (B) was not recognized at first based on our approach; however, this site has
5 been regarded as a natural seep in the previous study (41). We re-examine the time
series of Sentinel-1 SAR images and find recurrent but small oil slicks around it.
Therefore, we append it to our inventory of NSCs.
Fig. S16. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the Persian Gulf.
Fig. S17. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers in the South China Sea, the
Java Sea, and surroundings.
Fig. S18. Distribution of oil slick aggregation centers off the coasts of Mexico,
Panama, Colombia, India, and Australia, and in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Sea
of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk.
Fig. S19. Comparison between this study and the previous ones. (A) Comparison
between the NSCs derived by our results and natural seeps adapted from Wilson et al.
(20). (B) Comparison between the NSCs in the Gulf of Mexico and natural seeps
5 adapted from Macdonald et al. (2). (C) Comparison between the NSCs in the Lower
Congo Basin and natural seeps adapted from Jatiault et al. (21). (D) Comparison
between the NSCs off the coast of Southern California and natural seeps adapted from
Kvenvolden and Cooper (17) and Hornafius et al. (23).
Fig. S20. Aggregation pattern of oil slicks from natural and fixed anthropogenic
sources. (A) Oil slicks released by a natural geological source on different dates
(labeled with blue fonts) are overlaid together. We visually identified the aggregation
5 center (black star) of the slicks based on the aggregation pattern they demonstrated. (B–
C) The recurrent oil slicks adjacent to platforms/pipelines also display the aggregation
pattern, and therefore they are identified as oil slicks associated with static
anthropogenic sources.
Fig. S21. Inventory of PSCs (No. 1–16). For each location of PSCs (blue circles), we
present SAR images acquired on different dates that show oil slicks directly connected
to offshore platforms (appear as bright spots in the SAR images).
Fig. S22. Inventory of PSCs (No. 17–32).
Fig. S28. Oil slick aggregation center in the Persian Gulf where platform records did not coincide with SAR images. The platform was
found in the Sentinel-1 images between July and December 2017, and recurrent oil slicks were observed only after the platform was
decommissioned. Therefore, we attribute these oil slicks to the platform.
Fig. 29. Distribution of PiSCs that are very adjacent to pipelines (mean distance =
0.98 km). (A) There are 23 PiSCs in the northern central GoM, and 18 of them are also
located in the north-central GoM—one of the most active natural seep zones. Three
5 PiSCs in the natural seep zone are very close to pipeline intersections (A1–A3). (B)
Two PiSCs in the North Sea. (C) One PiSCs in the Gulf of Guinea.
Fig. S30. Three types of oil slick source proportions globally. The area proportions
in the left panel are unnormalized and calculated directly based on oil slick areas. The
area-weighted proportions (the middle panel) and observation area-weighted
5 proportions (the right panel) are normalized by regional areas and observation areas,
respectively.
Fig. S31. The development of marine transportation. (A) The volume of annual
international maritime trade has boosted from ~6 to 11 billion tons between 2000 and
2019, with an average growth rate of 3.33% per year. (B) The world fleet carrying
5 capacity has risen by 2.5 times from 2000 to 2019. The statistics are adapted from the
Review of Maritime Transport 2020 provided by the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development (UNCTAD,
https://stats.unctad.org/handbook/MaritimeTransport/WorldSeaborneTrade.html).
Fig. S32. Annual GDP growth of five Asian and South American emerging
economies and the world. These countries exhibit an average GDP growth (11.04%)
higher than the world average (4.90%) during 1990–2019. The statistics are adapted
5 from the World Bank
(https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&series=NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.
ZG&country=).
Fig. S33. A global map of the low and high wind speed occurrence frequencies (cell
size = 0.1°×0.1°), calculated as the occurrence number of extreme wind conditions to
the total observation number in a grid cell. (A) For low wind speeds (<1.5 m s-1). (B)
5 For high wind speeds (>10 m s-1). The NCEP wind field data (every six hours) of 2014–
2019 were acquired from the Google Earth Engine (GEE). The brown polylines are 31
offshore regions' boundaries in this study, referring to the Encyclopedia Britannica (40).
Fig. S34. Distribution of offshore surface infrastructures. (A) Platform datasets are
from Liu et al. (25). See Table S2 for more details. (B–T) The enlarged views of areas
marked by white dashed boxes in (A).
Fig. S35. Distribution of offshore subsurface infrastructures. (A) Borehole/well and
pipeline datasets used here are from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
(BOEM), OSPAR Data & Information Management System, etc. See Table S2 for more
5 details. (B–I) The enlarged views of areas marked by white dashed boxes in (A).
Fig. S36. Examples of oil slicks and look-alikes in the Sentinel-1 SAR VV images.
(A–C) Oil slicks caused by natural seepages and anthropogenic activities. (D–I, K, M,
O) Natural phenomena on the sea surface also appear as dark features in the SAR
5 images. (J, L, N, P) Ancillary environmental data, including wind and sea surface
temperature (SST), is used to determine the existence of look-alikes. We verified that
the wind speed at the area of J is 1.72–2.55 m s-1, and the wind direction at L is
perpendicular to the shoreline of the leeward side of the island, where shadow areas
generate. We confirmed that the SST of the sea ice area at N is around -1–0.5 °C, and
10 the SST of the upwelling area at M is 0.5–1.5 °C lower than that of the surrounding
waters.
Fig. S37. Flowchart of semi-automatic oil slick extraction and oil slick
classification.
Fig. S38. Locations, damping, and backscatter histograms of oil-free water and oil
slick samples. (A–F) The oil slick (dark blue dots) and surrounding water (light blue
dots) pixels in 638 SAR images from six known oil seepage areas are selected for
5 analysis. (G–L) The VV signal value of oil-free water samples (light blue bars) is within
a -35–-12 dB range, and that of oil slick samples (dark blue bars) is -50–-21 dB. The
contrast between oil slicks and surrounding oil-free water (red lines) is mainly between
3 dB and 30 dB.
Fig. S39. Heatmap of oil slick detection rate around all the oil slick aggregation
centers.
Fig. S40. The global distribution of oil slicks by category. (A) The global distribution
of oil slicks from natural seeps, platforms, pipelines, and other sources. (B) The global
distribution of oil slicks from 21 high-density belts in the oil slick gridded map of 2014–
5 2019 and 82,982 elongated and linear oil slicks.
Fig. S41. Global distribution of oil slicks (2014–2019). (A) Normalized area of oil
slicks in a 0.1°×0.1° grid, where more details for the Mediterranean Sea and the Black
Sea are shown in (B). (C) Frequency of VIIRS Boat Detection (VBD) in the same grid.
5 The VBD data was acquired from the Earth Observation Group in the Colorado School
of Mines (42).
Fig. S42. Examples of linear oil slicks from ship discharges. The yellow footnotes
on the lower-left corner of each inset refer to the acquisition dates of the corresponding
Sentinel-1 SAR images.
Fig. S43. Flowchart of spatial analysis of oil slicks.
Fig. S44. VIIRS Boat Detection (VBD) frequency of 2017–2019 (cell size =
0.1°×0.1°). Frequency was calculated as the number of detected boats in each grid cell.
Note that energetic particles over the South Atlantic magnetic anomaly areas (white
dotted ellipses) significantly influence the boat detection accuracy from VIIRS
Nighttime images, and therefore this area was excluded from statistics.
Fig. S45. Cumulative and normalized oil slick areas in the 31 regions. Error bars
represent the total uncertainties (i.e., the potentially underestimated oil slick areas per
full-coverage observation) caused by unfavorable low-wind conditions (blue) and high-
5 wind conditions (red). Both error bars share the same y-axis to the right.
Fig. S46. Density map of paired oil-slick-detection-area in the two-round manual
identification. The x and y axes represent oil slick areas detected in the two rounds.
Supplementary Tables
Table S1. List of oil slick aggregation centers
No. Longitude Latitude Type Region Water Distance to Average Oil slick Oil slick
(°) (°) depth (m) coasts (km) observation occurrence detection
number number rate (%)
1 35.17 41.92 Aquaculture Black Sea -44 5.76 532.2 9 1.69
2 110.36 20.89 Aquaculture China -11 4.67 276 5 1.81
3 110.43 20.93 Aquaculture China -7 8.12 275.77 15 5.44
4 11.09 35.74 Aquaculture Mediterranean Sea -36 11.83 744.13 29 3.90
10 27.12 37.46 Aquaculture Mediterranean Sea -67 4.84 553 14 2.53
11 -0.59 38.08 Aquaculture Mediterranean Sea -37 5.26 546 14 2.56
12 -0.06 39.79 Aquaculture Mediterranean Sea -24 5.17 605.41 31 5.12
14 -6.18 35.3 Aquaculture Morocco -51 5.14 491 32 6.52
15 -93.95 19.92 Natural seep Arabian Sea -1202 169750.78 214.00 31 14.49
16 -93.67 19.93 Natural seep Bay of Biscay -1121 165850.35 214.00 12 5.61
17 -93.81 19.78 Natural seep Black Sea -1306 151731.34 214.00 35 16.36
25 -94.38 18.59 Natural seep Caribbean Sea -91 41606.97 342.47 4 1.17
48 -93.69 20.29 Natural seep Caspian Sea -1189 206385.77 214.00 19 8.88
91 -93.49 27.22 Natural seep Coast of Brazil -920 260748.53 75.00 11 14.67
92 -93.60 27.04 Natural seep Coast of California, the U.S. -1188 268833.48 75.00 12 16.00
108 -92.07 27.03 Natural seep Coast of Ecuador & Peru -1525 250389.97 113.29 27 23.83
139 -91.66 27.28 Natural seep Coast of Mexico -1350 209472.49 88.00 45 51.14
144 -91.16 27.07 Natural seep Coast of Panama & Colombia -1675 221414.89 87.31 34 38.94
148 -91.31 27.73 Natural seep Gulf of Guinea -564 151163.21 88.71 25 28.18
191 49.49 37.75 Natural seep Gulf of Guinea -191 28240.26 399.21 75 18.79
210 49.45 38.19 Natural seep Gulf of Mexico -523 48078.89 355.00 105 29.58
291 -5.75 46.08 Natural seep Gulf of Mexico -4679 218969.55 665.14 12 1.80
292 10.59 -6.50 Natural seep Gulf of Mexico -2266 191429.87 208.00 34 16.35
360 -80.40 -2.85 Natural seep Gulf of Mexico -11 15811.11 163.00 15 9.20
386 -81.33 -5.67 Natural seep Java Sea -444 30099.41 167.00 69 41.32
387 -81.28 -5.26 Natural seep Mediterranean Sea -95 10550.67 167.00 19 11.38
391 -94.65 15.03 Natural seep Mediterranean Sea -2086 126558.89 140.69 41 29.14
404 -119.81 34.15 Natural seep North Atlantic Ocean -368 9474.07 230.33 30 13.02
409 -123.54 38.41 Natural seep Persian Gulf -200 24830.86 365.05 15 4.11
412 72.22 18.50 Natural seep Persian Gulf -51 70048.88 86.03 21 24.41
413 -40.29 -22.07 Natural seep Persian Gulf -60 71083.27 254.00 5 1.97
425 -64.53 10.45 Natural seep Red Sea -1271 15200.66 228.00 61 26.75
441 -79.34 9.70 Natural seep Sea of Japan -61 13853.73 136.00 19 13.97
442 105.67 5.52 Natural seep Sea of Okhotsk -70 247504.16 81.00 16 19.75
443 104.72 5.16 Natural seep South China Sea -68 146288.50 163.30 6 3.67
449 106.73 -4.62 Natural seep South China Sea -21 91902.73 199.00 9 4.52
450 -94.45 27.23 Pipeline slick Gulf of Guinea -1072 204175.42 150.00 17 11.33
451 -94.90 26.09 Pipeline slick Gulf of Mexico -2475 224433.75 78.00 38 48.72
473 0.76 61.22 Pipeline slick Gulf of Mexico -159 93086.97 723.00 9 1.24
474 2.91 60.76 Pipeline slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -169 98831.13 721.38 20 2.77
475 6.00 4.21 Pipeline slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -11 11531.42 190.00 20 10.53
476 -92.63 18.87 Platform slick Arabian Sea -25 27091.11 526.01 20 3.80
477 -92.03 19.38 Platform slick Arabian Sea -44 75077.83 241.37 116 48.06
478 -88.86 29.29 Platform slick Caribbean Sea -49 18071.58 204.00 9 4.41
481 52.76 39.46 Platform slick Caribbean Sea -52 28826.08 466.75 52 11.14
482 49.62 39.73 Platform slick Caspian Sea -33 16793.56 244.73 42 17.16
483 32.46 31.55 Platform slick Caspian Sea -22 33345.94 693.98 112 16.14
484 11.41 34.30 Platform slick Coast of California, the U.S. -71 47760.92 618.87 44 7.11
485 30.18 31.57 Platform slick Coast of Ecuador & Peru -27 17002.29 720.00 33 4.58
486 30.13 31.58 Platform slick Gulf of Guinea -35 22482.77 720.00 16 2.22
510 -0.26 58.45 Platform slick Gulf of Guinea -107 130698.95 738.20 24 3.25
519 1.90 61.29 Platform slick Gulf of Mexico -144 149825.94 481.45 33 6.85
524 2.77 60.61 Platform slick Indian Ocean -108 110019.79 729.68 14 1.92
525 3.05 60.54 Platform slick Java Sea -135 95118.44 676.89 61 9.01
530 10.73 -6.24 Platform slick Mediterranean Sea -1981 169638.38 208.00 26 12.50
535 11.78 -5.18 Platform slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -76 30184.82 227.00 49 21.59
544 8.13 3.86 Platform slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -129 58152.70 250.27 81 32.37
564 -81.32 -4.30 Platform slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -90 3082.02 165.00 33 20.00
565 -119.61 34.34 Platform slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -53 8798.70 231.18 92 39.80
568 -60.90 10.20 Platform slick North Sea & Norwegian Sea -22 11047.32 225.00 39 17.33
569 -60.83 10.11 Platform slick Persian Gulf -56 18520.13 224.46 34 15.15
572 105.21 5.50 Platform slick Persian Gulf -67 210306.71 163.00 33 20.25
577 103.81 7.20 Platform slick South China Sea -55 184750.89 98.00 25 25.51
582 106.63 -4.66 Platform slick South China Sea -21 79984.83 199.00 29 14.57
Table S2. List of ancillary data
No. Data product Version Spatial Temporal Data Spatial Temporal Providers/sources
coverage coverage format resolution resolution
British Oceanographic Data Centre
(BODC),
GEBCO gridded bathymetry
1 2020 Global / Raster 15’×15’ / https://www.bodc.ac.uk/data/hosted_
data
data_systems/gebco_gridded_bathym
etry_data/
NCEP Climate Forecast NOAA NWS National Centers for
1979–
2 System Version 2 (CFSV2) 2.0 Global Raster 0.25°×0.25° 6 hour Environmental Prediction (NCEP),
Present
Products https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds094.0/
Gridded rainfall estimates NASA Precipitation Processing
2014–
3 from combined 6.0 Global Raster 0.25°×0.25° 1.5 hour System (PPS),
Present
radar/radiometer data (GPM) https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/directory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
GHRSST Level 4 G1SST NASA,
4 Global Foundation Sea 1.0 Global 2010–2020 Raster 1 km Daily https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/JP
Surface Temperature Analysis L_OUROCEAN-L4UHfnd-GLOB-
G1SST
MODIS Aqua/Terra 2000– NASA EarthData,
5 / Global Raster 4 km Twice-daily
chlorophyll concentration Present https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/l3/
NASA LP DAAC at the USGS
MODIS Aqua/Terra Surface 2000–
6 / Global Raster 250 m Twice-daily EROS Center,
Reflectance Present
https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/
Vector
7 Platforms 2019 Global / / / Liu et al. (25)
(point)
Geoscience Australia,
Vector https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-ga-
2017 Australia / / /
(line) 60e3c5d5-b977-4f29-b64d-
04ac5329a9e7/details?q=
8 Pipelines
Bureau of Ocean Energy
Vector Management (BOEM),
2014 U.S.-Pacific / / /
(line) https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-
energy/mapping-and-data
Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Gulf of Vector
2020 / / / Enforcement (BSEE),
Mexico (line)
https://www.data.bsee.gov/
OSPAR Data & Information
Vector
2017 North Sea / / / Management System,
(line)
https://odims.ospar.org/
Google My Map,
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/
Vector viewer?mid=1ASj7EoDpSqVuZESD
2020 Nigeria / / /
(line) e2zJIPIoL-
M&hl=en_US&ll=3.7063659642162
974%2C6.589731073326796&z=9
https://www.pipeline-
Vector journal.net/news/iran-and-india-
2015 Iran & India / / /
(line) serious-talks-build-1400-km-
offshore-natural-gas-pipeline
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-
analysis/energy-markets/market-
Vector
2017 Canada / / / snapshots/2017/market-snapshot-25-
(line)
years-atlantic-canada-offshore-oil-
natural-gas-production.html
https://theodora.com/pipelines/southe
South-east Vector
2017 / / / ast_asia_oil_gas_products_pipelines_
Asia (line)
map.html
https://www.ogj.com/pipelines-
Vector transportation/tankers/article/172104
2014 Angola / / /
(line) 11/custom-offshore-pipeline-repair-
systems-save-money
Gabon, Farina, M.F. (2011). Flare Gas
Vector
2010 Republic of / / / Reduction Recent global trends and
(line)
Congo policy considerations.
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/new
Vector
2020 Brazil / / / s/petrobras-repsol-sinopec-shell-sign-
(line)
offshore-pipeline-deal
U.S.- Bureau of Ocean Energy
Atlantic, Vector Management (BOEM),
2016 / / /
Alaska, (point) https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-
Pacific energy/mapping-and-data
Bureau of Safety and Environmental
9 Boreholes/wells Gulf of Vector
2020 / / / Enforcement (BSEE),
Mexico (point)
https://www.data.bsee.gov/
OSPAR Data & Information
Vector
2017 North Sea / / / Management System,
(point)
https://odims.ospar.org/
Colorado School of Mines, Earth
Vector Observation Group (EOG),
10 VIIRS Boat Detection / Global 2016–2020 / Daily
(point) https://payneinstitute.mines.edu/eog/
viirs-boat-detection-vbd/
The slash (/) refers to no data in the table.
Table S3. Mean and standard deviation (STD) of occurrence frequencies (OF) of
low (<1.5 m s-1) and high wind speeds (>10 m s-1) over 31 offshore regions
Low wind speeds High wind speeds
No. Offshore region
Mean STD Mean STD
1 Coast of Alaska, the U.S. 0.06 0.08 0.18 0.13
2 Coast of Canada 0.08 0.08 0.09 0.12
3 Coast of California, the U.S. 0.05 0.08 0.21 0.10
4 Coast of Mexico 0.10 0.12 0.03 0.04
5 Gulf of Mexico 0.06 0.09 0.06 0.04
6 Caribbean Sea 0.06 0.13 0.09 0.11
7 Coast of Panama & Colombia 0.24 0.26 0.01 0.01
8 Coast of Ecuador & Peru 0.06 0.12 0.01 0.02
9 Greenland Sea 0.06 0.06 0.23 0.13
10 North Sea & Norwegian Sea 0.03 0.03 0.31 0.10
11 Baltic Sea 0.04 0.03 0.13 0.11
12 Coast of Russia 0.05 0.06 0.12 0.10
13 Irish Sea & surroundings 0.04 0.03 0.17 0.12
14 Bay of Biscay 0.06 0.07 0.15 0.10
15 Mediterranean Sea 0.09 0.09 0.08 0.07
16 Black Sea 0.11 0.12 0.05 0.05
17 Caspian Sea 0.09 0.12 0.05 0.06
18 Gulf of Guinea & surroundings 0.07 0.16 0.00 0.00
19 Red Sea & Gulf of Aden 0.13 0.12 0.03 0.04
20 Persian Gulf & Gulf of Oman 0.12 0.09 0.03 0.04
21 Arabian Sea & Laccadive Sea 0.05 0.04 0.10 0.09
22 Bay of Bengal & Andaman Sea 0.06 0.08 0.09 0.05
23 South China Sea & surroundings 0.12 0.19 0.09 0.10
24 East China Sea 0.05 0.09 0.18 0.09
25 Yellow Sea 0.08 0.08 0.09 0.06
26 Sea of Japan 0.07 0.07 0.15 0.09
27 Sea of Okhotsk 0.05 0.06 0.18 0.10
28 Coast of Brazil 0.05 0.12 0.06 0.07
29 Mozambique Channel 0.07 0.07 0.06 0.05
30 Java Sea & surroundings 0.15 0.18 0.02 0.03
31 Coral Sea & Coast of Australia 0.03 0.04 0.19 0.11
Table S4. Summary of discrimination criteria of oil slicks and look-alikes
No. Category SAR Signatures Discrimination Criteria References
Distinctive linear dark features, broadest near
1 Natural oil slicks Shape; far from platforms and pipelines (2, 29, 36)
the origin and tapering away down-wind
Much larger in area and darker than natural oil
Larger dampening; proximity to platforms or
2 Oil slicks from platforms, pipelines slicks, a greater variety of regular and irregular (2, 21, 30)
pipelines
shapes, platform appear as bright spot
Straight, piecewise-linear or feathered dark
3 Oil slicks from ships features, sometimes with bright spot at ship Shape; proximity to shipping routes (29, 30, 36)
location
Wind speed <2 m/s and wind direction; weak
4 Low wind speed areas Extensive dark areas backscattering area; lee of islands/coastal (29, 36, 43)
mountains
Rounded features, darker patches in the internal
5 Rainfall areas Precipitation data; heterogeneous background (21, 29, 36)
cell area compared to free water
Multiple parallel trends interspersed by dark
6 Internal wave Heterogeneous background (29)
stripes
Lower SST than the surroundings; connected
7 Upwelling Extensive dark patches (36, 43)
with the coasts
Shape; near the coasts; low-contrast in
8 Front Dark lines (36, 43)
homogeneous sea
9 Shear zones Dark borders Shape; near the coasts; current data (29)
Threadlike extensive, scattered, and connected High chlorophyll-a concentration;
10 Biogenic slicks (21, 33, 36)
films heterogeneous background
11 Grease ice Dark patches, adjacent to ice with brighter color SST ≤ freezing point; bright background (29)
Consistency of its shape with the variation in
12 Sandbanks during ebb tide Dark features (36)
submarine topography
After strong rain events, carrying surface active
13 Storm water Dark areas, flowing from land into the sea (36)
material
14 Land-based sewage Discharged from coastal plants Near the coasts (36)
15 Ship turbulence wakes Thin and straight/piecewise-linear dark features Bright spot at ship location (1, 30)
Table S5. Area weighted proportions of oil slick sources
Region Anatural Aplatform Apipeline Aother Aregion Warea AWnatural AWplatform AWpipeline AWother
Java Sea & surroundings 214.37 1451.84 / 167646.37 4887498.68 3.26 6.99 47.37 / 5469.50
Mediterranean Sea 3498.99 1035.93 / 149779.28 2524886.06 1.69 58.97 17.46 / 2524.41
South China Sea & surroundings 781.68 948.74 / 131540.18 2584041.62 1.72 13.48 16.36 / 2268.95
North Atlantic Ocean 233.59 / / 115720.43 29350741.13 19.59 45.76 / / 22672.30
Gulf of Guinea & surroundings 12273.16 10908.17 301.59 62380.20 1232430.27 0.82 100.97 89.74 2.48 513.19
Caspian Sea 18508.77 467.43 / 62469.41 395994.20 0.26 48.93 1.24 / 165.13
North Pacific Ocean / / / 58874.30 28705659.09 19.16 / / / 11281.32
Coast of Brazil 125.96 / / 52437.84 2284270.70 1.52 1.92 / / 799.57
Persian Gulf 9119.82 2447.05 / 37686.42 351132.86 0.23 21.38 5.74 / 88.33
North Sea & Norwegian Sea / 3356.18 207.38 44948.45 1780099.75 1.19 / 39.88 2.46 534.10
Gulf of Mexico 19498.22 2001.40 7094.53 18029.62 1555851.90 1.04 202.50 20.79 73.68 187.25
Indian Ocean / 30.45 / 45337.76 24113674.13 16.10 / 4.90 / 7297.77
Black Sea 7807.97 / / 36960.68 463140.64 0.31 24.14 / / 114.27
Yellow Sea / / / 40444.57 418904.71 0.28 / / / 113.09
South Pacific Ocean / / / 37569.17 8221560.22 5.49 / / / 2061.83
Red Sea & Gulf of Aden 2649.39 / / 31073.13 738878.47 0.49 13.07 / / 153.26
Coast of Mexico 1009.74 / / 31410.04 1545467.62 1.03 10.42 / / 324.04
Coast of California, the U.S. 7783.34 559.68 / 21426.43 836518.18 0.56 43.46 3.13 / 119.64
Bay of Bengal & Andaman Sea / / / 22926.57 1756037.18 1.17 / / / 268.74
Baltic Sea / / / 21895.02 456930.61 0.31 / / / 66.78
Mozambique Channel / / / 21573.41 1382428.67 0.92 / / / 199.08
Arabian Sea & Laccadive Sea 88.22 370.48 / 20197.28 2307711.81 1.54 1.36 5.71 / 311.13
Coast of Ecuador & Peru 7206.15 188.47 / 13115.78 602439.86 0.40 28.98 0.76 / 52.74
South Atlantic Ocean / / / 17810.28 14089016.97 9.40 / / / 1675.01
Caribbean Sea 2592.80 712.92 / 12729.23 2885092.89 1.93 49.93 13.73 / 245.15
Coast of Alaska, the U.S. / / / 14509.69 658507.97 0.44 / / / 63.78
Coast of Australia & Coral Sea / / / 13974.85 4373587.87 2.92 / / / 407.99
Bay of Biscay 51.22 / / 12763.33 312297.26 0.21 0.11 / / 26.61
East China Sea / / / 12317.72 764677.40 0.51 / / / 62.87
Coast of Canada / / / 11783.32 2129319.66 1.42 / / / 167.48
Sea of Okhotsk 213.12 / / 10880.74 1156295.16 0.77 1.64 / / 83.98
Sea of Japan 113.49 / / 10638.69 1017367.61 0.68 0.77 / / 72.25
Irish Sea & surroundings / / / 8950.21 111577.62 0.07 / / / 6.67
Coast of Russia / / / 5712.57 2133169.27 1.42 / / / 81.34
Coast of Panama & Colombia 392.52 / / 4786.09 271583.62 0.18 0.71 / / 8.68
Greenland Sea / / / 1899.22 306982.60 0.20 / / / 3.89
Arctic Ocean / / / 1182.52 1101700.11 0.74 / / / 8.70
Sum 94162.50 24478.75 7603.51 1385380.79 149807474.37 100.00 675.50 266.79 78.63 60500.83
Proportion (%) 6.23 1.62 0.50 91.65 / / 1.10 0.43 0.13 98.34
Anatural, Aplatform, Apipeline, and Aother are the areas of oil slicks from natural seeps, platforms, pipelines, and other sources (unit: km2). Aregion is the
area of each region (unit: km2). Warea is the area weight of each region (unit: %), which is calculated as the ratio of region area to total area.
AWnatural, AWplatform, AWpipeline, and AWother are the weighted areas of oil slicks using area weights (unit: %). They are obtained by multiplying oil
slick areas by the area weights. The slash (/) refers to no data in the table.
Table S6. Observation area weighted proportions of oil slick sources
FSAR- W OW OW OW
Region Anatural Aplatform Apipeline Aother Aregion OWother
mean Observation natural platform pipeline
Java Sea & surroundings 214.37 1451.84 / 167646.37 4887498.68 165.15 5.21 11.17 75.67 / 8737.56
Mediterranean Sea 3498.99 1035.93 / 149779.28 2524886.06 528.28 8.61 301.36 89.22 / 12900.13
South China Sea & /
781.68 948.74 / 131540.18 2584041.62 134.08 2.24 17.49 21.23 2942.87
surroundings
North Atlantic Ocean 233.59 / / 115720.43 29350741.13 135.64 25.71 60.05 / / 29747.84
Gulf of Guinea & surroundings 12273.16 10908.17 301.59 62380.20 1232430.27 151.18 1.20 147.65 131.23 3.63 750.46
Caspian Sea 18508.77 467.43 / 62469.41 395994.20 378.25 0.97 179.01 4.52 / 604.19
North Pacific Ocean / / / 58874.30 28705659.09 43.46 8.06 / / / 4742.40
Coast of Brazil 125.96 / / 52437.84 2284270.70 102.06 1.51 1.90 / / 789.36
Persian Gulf 9119.82 2447.05 / 37686.42 351132.86 251.96 0.57 52.10 13.98 / 215.29
North Sea & Norwegian Sea 0.00 3356.18 207.38 44948.45 1780099.75 680.00 7.82 / 262.32 16.21 3513.18
Gulf of Mexico 19498.22 2001.40 7094.53 18029.62 1555851.90 126.98 1.28 248.72 25.53 90.50 229.99
Indian Ocean / 30.45 / 45337.76 24113674.13 35.17 5.48 / 1.67 / 2483.03
Black Sea 7807.97 / / 36960.68 463140.64 609.97 1.82 142.43 / / 674.21
Yellow Sea / / / 40444.57 418904.71 179.10 0.48 / / / 195.93
South Pacific Ocean / / / 37569.17 8221560.22 64.51 3.42 / / / 1286.61
Red Sea & Gulf of Aden 2649.39 / / 31073.13 738878.47 203.09 0.97 25.67 / / 301.08
Coast of Mexico 1009.74 / / 31410.04 1545467.62 162.84 1.62 16.41 / / 510.41
Coast of California, the U.S. 7783.34 559.68 / 21426.43 836518.18 205.03 1.11 86.20 6.20 / 237.29
Bay of Bengal & Andaman Sea / / / 22926.57 1756037.18 90.43 1.03 / / / 235.07
Baltic Sea / / / 21895.02 456930.61 627.73 1.85 / / / 405.51
Mozambique Channel / / / 21573.41 1382428.67 181.91 1.62 / / / 350.32
Arabian Sea & Laccadive Sea 88.22 370.48 / 20197.28 2307711.81 46.23 0.69 0.61 2.55 / 139.13
Coast of Ecuador & Peru 7206.15 188.47 / 13115.78 602439.86 104.62 0.41 29.33 0.77 / 53.38
South Atlantic Ocean / / / 17810.28 14089016.97 19.57 1.78 / / / 317.09
Caribbean Sea 2592.80 712.92 / 12729.23 2885092.89 155.64 2.90 75.18 20.67 / 369.07
Coast of Alaska, the U.S. / / / 14509.69 658507.97 166.22 0.71 / / / 102.55
Coast of Australia & Coral Sea / / / 13974.85 4373587.87 69.34 1.96 / / / 273.64
Bay of Biscay 51.22 / / 12763.33 312297.26 705.84 1.42 0.73 / / 181.67
East China Sea / / / 12317.72 764677.40 99.21 0.49 / / / 60.34
Coast of Canada / / / 11783.32 2129319.66 95.18 1.31 / / / 154.21
Sea of Okhotsk 213.12 / / 10880.74 1156295.16 156.49 1.17 2.49 / / 127.13
Sea of Japan 113.49 / / 10638.69 1017367.61 137.15 0.90 1.02 / / 95.85
Irish Sea & surroundings / / / 8950.21 111577.62 869.71 0.63 / / / 56.08
Coast of Russia / / / 5712.57 2133169.27 174.91 2.41 / / / 137.63
Coast of Panama & Colombia 392.52 / / 4786.09 271583.62 108.15 0.19 0.74 / / 9.08
Greenland Sea / / / 1899.22 306982.60 171.86 0.34 / / / 6.47
Arctic Ocean / / / 1182.52 1101700.11 17.93 0.13 / / / 1.51
Sum 94162.50 24478.75 7603.51 1385380.79 149807474.37 / 100.00 1400.25 655.55 110.34 73937.53
Proportion (%) 6.23 1.62 0.50 91.65 / / / 1.84 0.86 0.14 97.15
Anatural, Aplatform, Apipeline, and Aother are the areas of oil slicks from natural seeps, platforms, pipelines, and other sources (unit: km2). Notably, the
area of oil slicks from pipelines are included in Anatural. Aregion is the area of each region (unit: km2). FSAR-mean is the average data frequency of each
region. The observation area of each region can be obtained by multiplying Aregion by FSAR-mean. WObservation is the observation area weight of each
region (unit: %), which is calculated as the ratio of observation area in the region to global observation area. OWnatural, OWplatform, OWpipeline, and
OWother are the weighted areas of oil slicks using observation area weights (unit: %). They are obtained by multiplying oil slick areas by the
observation area weights. The slash (/) refers to no data in the table.
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Chronic oiling in global oceans

Yanzhu Dong et al.

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Science 376, 1300 (2022)

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