A Feasibility Study of Ocean Acoustic Tomography in the Barents Sea

• Main Author: Emblidge, John M.
• Other Authors: NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1991
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; Acoustic Detection and Detectors; *COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; SCATTERING; ENVIRONMENTS; LITERATURE SURVEYS; ACOUSTIC WAVES; ARRAYS; THESES; TRANSMITTANCE; FEASIBILITY STUDIES; SIGNALS; RECEIVERS; SOUND TRANSMISSION; CLIMATE; LAUNCHING; LEVEL(QUANTITY); ACOUSTIC SIGNALS; ACOUSTICS; LOSSES; TOMOGRAPHY; OCEANS; RAY TRACING; BARENTS SEA; BOTTOM; HAMILTONIAN FUNCTIONS; OCEANOGRAPHY; SOURCES; *SOUNDING; *ACOUSTIC TOMOGRAPHY; *BARENTS SEA; HARPO(HAMILTONIAN ACOUSTIC RAY TRACING PROGRAM FOR THE OCEAN); Barents Sea
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA245171; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA245171

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the feasibility of conducting vertical array ocean acoustic tomography in the Barents Sea. This effort in support of the Barents Sea Acoustic Tomography Transmission Test experiment to be carried out in the summer of 1992 by NPS and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). This study is conducted in two stages: a literature search and a computer simulation of acoustic ray propagation in the Barents Sea. The literature search gathered oceanographic, geophysical, and climatological data on the Barents Sea. These data were used to form a picture of the oceanographic conditions expected to exist in the Barents Sea in August and to estimate the acoustic bottom, surface and scattering losses that the tomographic signal could be subjected to. Also the noise levels in the Barents Sea were determined from these data. The computer simulation of tomographic transmission in the Barents Sea was conducted using HARPO (Hamiltonian Acoustic Raytracing Program for the Ocean). This program provided raytraces for acoustic rays launched between 0 and 25 from one of the three planned sources to the receiver array. This analysis determined that tomography in the Barents Sea is possible, and that the planned source level of the sources will be large enough to overcome the environmental losses.