Langmuir Circulation

Langmuir circulation is a pattern of shallow, slow, counter-rotating vortices at the surface of the ocean, aligned in the direction of the wind, first identified by physicist Irving Langmuir in 1927 after he noticed organized rows of floating seaweed in the Sargasso Sea. The circulation forms when a steady wind blows across the sea surface and interacts with the orbital motion of surface waves, a process that stretches and tilts near-surface water rotation into organized, roughly cylindrical roll vortices in the upper ocean. Where adjacent vortices meet, the circulation produces alternating convergence and divergence zones visible at the surface as long streaks, or windrows, where floating seaweed, foam, and debris collect, typically spaced between one and a few hundred meters apart. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/