An Examination of 3D Environmental Variability on Broadband Acoustic Propagation Near the Mid-Atlantic Bight

• Main Author: Smith, Kevin B
• Other Authors: NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA DEPT OF PHYSICS
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; Direction Finding; Acoustics; *ACOUSTIC DATA; *AZIMUTH; *BATHYMETRY; *BROADBAND; *FRONTS(OCEANOGRAPHY); *SOUND TRANSMISSION; AMBIENT NOISE; COASTAL REGIONS; CONTINENTAL SHELVES; COUPLING(INTERACTION); GEOACOUSTICS; GULF STREAM; NONLINEAR SYSTEMS; OCEANOGRAPHY; PLANE WAVES; PRIMERS; THREE DIMENSIONAL; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA551507; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA551507

Under the PRIMER initiative, the Office of Naval Research sponsored a multi-year study of acoustic propagation in the region of the North Atlantic Bight off the coast of New Jersey. This region is of interest due to the combination of sloping bathymetry near the continental shelf and the strong oceanographic frontal features associated with the Gulf Stream. The general purpose of this project is to study the effects of the frontal region on acoustic propagation onto the shelf. Proposed here is a complementary study of propagation effects and data analysis. Specifically, the influence of three-dimensional propagation effects and their influence on the prediction of broadband measurements in similar oceanographic regions shall be addressed. Studies of two-dimensional, broadband propagation will also be performed to examine temporal variability of plane-wave beam arrivals. Attempts will be made to invert for geoacoustic parameters using both broadband ambient noise data and explosive SUS data. To continue analysis of the PRIMER summer '96 acoustic data. This analysis will primarily focus on the influence of 3-D azimuthal coupling due to bathymetric features and ocean fronts near the shelf break of the mid-Atlantic Bight, plane-wave beam variability through a fluctuating front with non-linear soliton wave activity, and use of various data for geoacoutic inversion studies. The results of this analysis will provide guidance for the use of active and passive sonar systems near shelf break regions. See also ADM002252.