Effect of ambient temperature fluctuation on DAS observation with a submarine cable

Abstract

Long-term Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) using a submarine cable is being conducted in the Nankai Trough, Japan. The first long-term DAS observation shows that the apparent strain is observed along the relatively shallow water depth section (i.e., < water depth 1000 m) on the submarine cable, suggesting a periodic temperature fluctuation up to about 6 degrees Celsius associated with the ocean tide takes place in this region (Ide et al., 2021). However, it is difficult to discuss how the ambient temperature changes, or how the ambient temperature affects the submarine cabled DAS observation because of the lack of the in-situ observation. For this reason, we installed temperature sensors near the submarine cable by a Remotely Operation Vehicle (ROV). We did not discover the submarine cable at the seafloor, and therefore the detailed location of the temperature sensors, i.e., the accurate cable position could not be constraint so far. Simultaneous observations of the DAS and the long-term ambient temperature were conducted for a period from 16 August 2021 to 04 October 2021, i.e. about 50 days. A cross-correlation analysis between the DAS and the ambient temperature by dividing into the 5-day dataset has speculated the position of the temperature sensors to be 24.75 km of the submarine cable. Additionally, the strain coefficient of the optical fiber w.r.t. the temperature change has been determined to be 7 micro-strain per 1 degree Celsius, which is comparable to the previous experimental study (Zumberge et al., 2018). Finally, the temperature correction was performed, but the phase delay still remains, suggesting that the thermal measurement should be conducted beside the submarine cable.