Sound Speed Structure of the Western South Atlantic Ocean.

The sound speed structure of the western South Atlantic Ocean is far more variable than that found in the North Atlantic or North Indian Oceans, largely due to hemispheric position and a wide variety of surface, near-surface, intermediate depth, and near-bottom water masses. In the South Atlantic, s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fenner,Don F
Other Authors: NAVAL OCEAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY NSTL STATION MS
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1982
Subjects:
Physical and Dynamic Oceanography
*Acoustic velocity
Cross sections
South Atlantic Ocean
Underwater sound
Ocean currents
Circulation
Temperature
Salinity
Depth
Profiles
Seasonal variations
Antarctic
Indian
Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The Antarctic
Antarc*
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA118765
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA118765
Description
Summary:The sound speed structure of the western South Atlantic Ocean is far more variable than that found in the North Atlantic or North Indian Oceans, largely due to hemispheric position and a wide variety of surface, near-surface, intermediate depth, and near-bottom water masses. In the South Atlantic, summer is defined as January-March and winter as July-September. The wide variety of temperature and salinity variability throughout the western South Atlantic leads to entirely differently shaped sound speed profiles and entirely different values of the depth of the deep sound channel axis and critical depth. These differences undoubtedly have significant effects on acoustic propagation. This report examines western South Atlantic sound speed variability along three cross-sections for both summer and winter, relates variability in sound speed structures to surface currents, the Antarctic Intermediate Water, Mediterrannean Intermediate Water, and Antarctic Bottom Water core flows west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and defines the number of observations deeper than the depth of the deep sound channel axis during both summer and winter for the entire South Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and 45 S latitude. (Author)

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