Low-salinity-induced surface sound channel in the western sea of Jeju Island during summer

Abstract

Surface salinity in the western sea of Jeju Island in Korea becomes low due to the inflow of the Chinese coastal waters during summer. One of the characteristics of low salinity water is the formation of a surface sound channel (SSC) due to the decrease in sound speed by salinity. However, a quantitative analysis between low salinity water and SSC has not been fully investigated yet. In this paper, a temperature-salinity (T-S) gradient diagram is introduced in order to assess SSC formation and its acoustic characteristics are also investigated through a case study of low salinity waters. Maximum angles of limiting rays were less than 4.6° and low frequency cutoffs were higher than 2.0 kHz for the SSCs formed in low salinity water. When the salinity gradients were large (>0.5 psu/m), a SSC was formed more efficiently than other cases whose salinity gradients were small. On the other hand, a SSC was not formed in spite of highly positive salinity gradients when the amount of temperature gradients was negatively high enough (<-0.5 °C/m). However, the acoustic energy transfer in the surface ducts was dependent on frequency and position of source.