We present a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approach based on a nonlinear differential low-pass filter for the simulation of two-dimensional barotropic flows with under-refined meshes. For the implementation of such model, we choose a segregated three-step algorithm combined with a computationally efficient Finite Volume method. We assess the performance of our approach with the classical double-gyre wind forcing benchmark. The numerical experiments we present demonstrate that our nonlinear filter is an improvement over a linear filter since it is able to recover the four-gyre pattern of the time-averaged stream function even with extremely coarse meshes. In addition, our LES approach provides an average kinetic energy that compares well with the one computed with a Direct Numerical Simulation.
