A brief review of modeling in support of bubble‐enhanced scattering from the air/sea interface

Abstract

By 1995 or so, the long‐standing disparity (at low to moderate frequencies) between sea surface (backscatter) reverberation data and interface scattering models was solved by the incorporating a bubble cloud scattering mechanism into reverberation models. At that time (and still today), a comprehensive description of the spatially and temporally varying bubble population was lacking, so critical environmental parameters needed for the bubble cloud scattering models were inferred from the differences in the scattering levels predicted by interface scattering models and measured scattering strengths. This modeling development generally ignored another mechanism through which the bubbles may influence the reverberation: the bubbles will also cause upward refraction near the air/sea interface and this upward refraction may significantly increase the scattering from the air/sea boundary. In this presentation, a brief review of the published modeling supporting the bubble‐enhanced interface scattering phenomeno...