The North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory (NPAL) deep-water acoustic propagation experiments in the Philippine Sea

Abstract

The North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory (NPAL) Group has performed a series of experiments to study deep-water acoustic propagation and ambient noise in the northern Philippine Sea: (i) 2009 NPAL Pilot Study/Engineering Test (PhilSea09), (ii) 2010–2011 NPAL Philippine Sea Experiment (PhilSea10), and (iii) Ocean Bottom Seismometer Augmentation of the 2010–2011 NPAL Philippine Sea Experiment (OBSAPS). The goals are to (i) understand the impacts of fronts, eddies, and internal tides on acoustic propagation in this oceanographically complex and dynamic region, (ii) determine whether acoustic methods, together with other measurements and ocean modeling, can yield estimates of the time-evolving ocean state useful for making improved acoustic predictions and for understanding the local ocean dynamics, (iii) improve our understanding of the physics of scattering by small-scale oceanographic variability, and (iv) characterize the depth dependence and temporal variability of the ambient noise field. In these experiments, moored and ship-suspended low-frequency acoustic sources transmitted to a newly developed Distributed Vertical Line Array (DVLA) receiver capable of spanning the water column in deep water. The acoustic transmissions and ambient noise were also recorded by the towed Five Octave Research Array (FORA), by acoustic Seagliders, and by ocean bottom seismometers during OBSAPS. [Work supported by ONR.]