Estimating the Oceanic Sound Speed Environmental for Long-Range Acoustic Propagation.

摘要

The High Gain Initiative (HGI) Program was established in 1987 as a focused Block Program of the office of Naval Technology (now part of the Office of Naval Research). One of its objectives was to investigate the oceanic environment and its effects on long-range sound transmission. One potential important factor was identified as imprecise knowledge of the oceanic sound speed field. Substantial Program resources were therefore invested in devising and executing sound speed measurement programs for two major field experiments, VAST (Various Acoustic Systems Tests) and MDA (Multi-Dimensional Array), which took place in 1989 in the Northeast Pacific and in 1991 in the western Subtropical Atlantic, respectively. This document reviews available oceanic sound speed measurement techniques, describes the combinations of techniques and strategies that made up each experiment's measurement plan, summarizes the results and the sound speed environment during each experiment, and evaluates what the work has revealed to date about sound speed uncertainties and long-range sound transmission. HGI, VAST, MDA, Long-range acoustic propagation, Sound speed, Physical oceanography, North Pacific subarctic front, North Atlantic subtropical front.