Secretary of the Navy Professor of Oceanography

• Main Author: Munk, Walter H
• Other Authors: SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY LA JOLLA CA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Meteorology; Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; Acoustic Detection and Detectors; Acoustics; *ACOUSTIC DETECTION; *ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENT; *AIR WATER INTERACTIONS; *GRAVITY WAVES; *MELTING; *POLAR CAP; *SEA ICE; *SURFACE WAVES; ACOUSTIC SIGNATURES; ACOUSTIC TOMOGRAPHY; DRAG; GEOPHONES; HYDROPHONES; MONITORING; OCEAN SURFACE; PACIFIC OCEAN; SEA LEVEL; WIND; WIND DRAG; OCEAN SURFACE ROUGHNESS; ARCTIC OCEANOGRAPHY; SEA LEVEL RISE; SPECTRAL INTENSITY; SPECTRAL MONITORING; UNDER-ICE OCEAN CAVITIES; POLAR OCEAN CAVITIES; POLAR ICE MELTING; ACOUSTIC MONITORING; GRAVITY-CAPILLARY WAVES; Arctic; Pacific; Ross Sea; Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA594660; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA594660

The principal research effort has been towards an understanding the high-frequency tail of the surface gravity wave spectrum, lengths of 2 cm to 60 cm. These are principally responsible for wind drag on water. The analysis was based on a unique data set from geophones and hydrophones at 5 1/2 km depth midway between California and Hawaii. The measured spectral intensity around 10 Hz gives a more accurate measure of local winds than the standard satellite scatterometry. A spectral gap at the 30 Hz gravity to capillary transition offers new opportunities for spectral monitoring. We are making progress towards understanding the generation processes. A continuing effort towards the acoustic monitoring of ocean processes has been directed at the polar ocean cavities sandwiched between the floating ice sheet and the sea floor. We are exploring a possible tomography experiment in the Ross Sea with the goal of better predicting polar ice melting processes and the associated global rise in sea level.