Three-dimensional shallow water sound propagation and applications toward acoustical oceanography

Abstract

Underwater sound propagation in areas of the continental shelf, shelf break, and continental slope can encounter strong horizontal reflection, refraction, diffraction, focusing, and/or defocusing due to a variety of environmental factors, including bathymetric variability, water column fluctuations (internal waves and shelf-break fronts), and boundary roughness. Theoretical, numerical, and experimental approaches have been taken to investigate the underlying physics of these three-dimensional (3-D) sound propagation effects and their temporal and spatial variability induced jointly by marine geological features and dynamic oceanographic processes. Some recent work on theoretical analysis, numerical modeling and field work experiments to study 3-D sound propagation in nonlinear internal wave ducts, over the continental slope and in submarine canyons will be reviewed in this talk. The ultimate goal of investing these 3-D sound propagation effects is to improve long-distance acoustical oceanographic technolo...