A study of the connection between tidal velocities, soliton packets and acoustic signal losses

Abstract

Coupled ocean model and acoustic model simulations of soliton packets in the Yellow Sea have indicated that the environmental conditions necessary for anomalous signal losses can occur several times in a 24 h period. These conditions and the subsequent signal losses were observed in simulations made over an 80 h space–time evolution of soliton packets that were generated by a 0.7 m/s tidal velocity [Chin-Bing et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 2459 (2002)]. This particular tidal velocity was used to initiate the Lamb soliton model because the soliton packets that were generated compared favorably with SAR measurements of soliton packets in the Yellow Sea. The tidal velocities in this region can range from 0.3 m/s to 1.2 m/s. In this work we extend our simulations and analyses to include soliton packets generated by other tidal velocities in the 0.3–1.2 m/s band. Anomalous signal losses are again observed. Examples will be shown that illustrate the connections between the tidal velocities, the soliton packets that are generated by these tidal velocities, and the signal losses that can occur when acoustic signals are propagated through these soliton packets. [Work supported by ONR/NRL and by a High Performance Computing DoD grant.]