Langmuir circulations (LC) often occur in the wind and wave driven surface mixed layer of lakes and oceans and consist of arrays of counter-rotating vortices oriented approximately in the downwind direction. Langmuir circulation is now regarded as one of several turbulent processes that operates in the upper boundary layers of oceans and lakes. It complements, interacts with, and often dominates other turbulent processes which transport momentum, heat and mass transfer or drive dispersion in the upper ocean. The model for the generation of LC consists of a vortex force, called Craik-Leibovich force, in the momentum equations modeling the interaction between the Stokes drift and the vertical shear of the current. We implement a large-eddy simulation (LES) to model the pressure-driven turbulent flow and wind-driven turbulent shear flow in shallow water. Comparisons between the different flows rely on visualizations and diagnostics including profiles of mean velocity, profiles of resolved Reynolds stress components, autocorrelations, invariants of the resolved Reynolds stress anisotropy tensor, balances of the transport equations for mean resolved turbulent kinetic energy, and resolved Reynolds stress.
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