Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In physical oceanography, Langmuir circulation consists of a series of shallow, slow, counter-rotating vortices at the ocean's surface aligned with the wind. These circulations are developed when wind blows steadily over the sea surface. Irving Langmuir discovered this phenomenon after observing windrows of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea in 1927. [1]
The CL vortex force is used to explain the generation of Langmuir circulations by an instability mechanism. The CL vortex-force mechanism was derived and studied by Sidney Leibovich and Alex D. D. Craik in the 1970s and 80s, in their studies of Langmuir circulations (discovered by Irving Langmuir in the 1930s).
Langmuir circulation results in the occurrence of thin, visible stripes, called windrows on the surface of the ocean parallel to the direction that the wind is blowing. If the wind is blowing with more than 3 m s −1 , it can create parallel windrows alternating upwelling and downwelling about 5–300 m apart.
In the upper ocean Langmuir circulations are a special case where the turbulent structures exhibit a dominant cell size. In general it is expected that Langmuir turbulence is a global ocean phenomenon and not confined to gentle wind conditions or shallow water ways (as with most observations of Langmuir circulation). [2]
Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone.
Open ocean wind circulation can lead to gyre-like structures of piled up sea surface water resulting in horizontal gradients of sea surface height. [1] This pile up of water causes the water to have a downward flow and suction, due to gravity and mass balance. Ekman pumping downward in the central ocean is a consequence of this convergence of ...
Two figures showing the surface Ekman spiral. The figure on the left is the 3D Ekman spiral, the figure on the right 2D. The solution for the flow forming the bottom Ekman spiral was a result of the shear stress exerted on the flow by the bottom.
Reynolds Experiment (1883). Osborne Reynolds standing beside his apparatus. In 1883, scientist Osborne Reynolds conducted a fluid dynamics experiment involving water and dye, where he adjusted the velocities of the fluids and observed the transition from laminar to turbulent flow, characterized by the formation of eddies and vortices. [5]