Sound Transmission through a Fluctuating Ocean

This book attempts to connect the known structure of the ocean volume with experimental results in long-range sound transmission.

Stanley M. Flatté (Edited by), Roger Dashen (Author), Walter H. Munk (Author), Kenneth M. Watson (Author), Frederik Zachariasen (Author)

9780521142458, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 June 2010

320 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

The ocean is transparent to sound where slight irregularities within the ocean cause sound fluctuations, and thus set limits on the many uses of sound in the ocean, similar to the limits imposed by the atmosphere on ground-based telescopes. This 1979 book attempts to connect the known structure of the ocean volume with experimental results in long-range sound transmission. Theories of wave propagation through irregular media, developed for optical and radio wave transmission are found to be inapplicable in many respects due to the complications of ocean structure, particularly the combination of anisotropy and 'sound channel'. The authors extend wave propagation theory to account for the ocean complications and introduces the path-integral approach to the solution of the strong-scattering regime that solves many long-standing problems. The book is written at the post-graduate level, but has been carefully organised to give experimenters a grasp of important results without undue mathematics.

Sketch by Leonardo da Vinci
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The Ocean Environment: 1. Ocean structure
2. Planetary waves and eddies
3. Linear internal waves
Part II. Introduction to Sound Transmission in the Ocean: 4. The ocean sound channel
5. The wave equation
Part III. Sound Transmission Through a Fluctuating Ocean: 6. Transmission through a homogeneous, isotropic medium
7. The ocean medium
8. Statistics of acoustic signals
9. Multipath effects and n-point Gaussian statistics
Part IV. Theory of Sound Transmission: 10. Supereikonal, or Rytov approximation
11. Propagation through a single upper turning point
12. Path integrals and propagation in saturated regimes
13. The transport equation in sound scattering
Part V. Experimental Observations of Acoustic Fluctuations: Eleuthera–Bermuda
15. Cobb seamount
16. Azores
Epilogue
Appendices
Bibliography
Glossary of terms
Units, dimensions and glossary of symbols
Index.

Subject Areas: Applied mathematics [PBW]