Abstract: AbstractThis paper is the first of a two part series that investigates passive buoyant tracers in the ocean surface boundary layer. The first part examines the influence of equilibrium wind‐waves on vertical tracer distributions, based on large eddy simulations (LES) of the wave‐averaged Navier‐Stokes equation. The second part applies the model to investigate observations of buoyant microplastic marine debris, which has emerged as a major ocean pollutant. The LES model captures both Langmuir turbulence (LT) and enhanced turbulent kinetic ...
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Topics: 
Mechanics
Atmospheric sciences
Meteorology