Sound Speed Structure of the Western South Atlantic Ocean.

• 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

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)