The simulation demonstrates how wind stress combines with wave-driven Stokes drift to generate counter-rotating Langmuir vortex pairs that sweep floating debris into parallel surface windrows.
Adjust the wind stress and Stokes drift sliders to change the strength and spacing of the vortex pairs, and watch how floating particles are swept into windrow convergence lines.
Sliders for wind stress and Stokes drift strength
Langmuir circulation is named after Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir, who first described it systematically after noticing floating seaweed organized into parallel lines while crossing the Sargasso Sea in 1927.
The simulation demonstrates how wind stress combines with wave-driven Stokes drift to generate counter-rotating Langmuir vortex pairs that sweep floating debris into parallel surface windrows.
The simulation demonstrates how wind stress combines with wave-driven Stokes drift to generate counter-rotating Langmuir vortex pairs that sweep floating debris into parallel surface windrows.
Adjust the wind stress and Stokes drift sliders to change the strength and spacing of the vortex pairs, and watch how floating particles are swept into windrow convergence lines.
Langmuir circulation is named after Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir, who first described it systematically after noticing floating seaweed organized into parallel lines while crossing the Sargasso Sea in 1927.