Prediction of the beamformed acoustic ray arrival structure for the 1992 Barents Sea coastal tomography test

Abstract

In an effort to solve the forward propagation problem associated with the 1992 Barents Sea Polar Front Experiment Tomography Test, the transmission of a 224 Hz pulse signal from a near bottom sound source to a vertical hydrophone array was simulated based on three-dimensional ray theory. based on three- dimensional ray theory. Through numerical raytracing, followed by eigenray searches and estimations of ray amplitudes, searches and estimations of ray amplitudes, phases and travel times, the arrival structure as a function of time and elevation angle was constructed. The simulation was performed for both a two-dimensional and three-dimensional modeled ocean environment in order to examine the significance of three-dimensional effects. The predicted arrival structures compare well with the observed data. Three-dimensional effects proved to be significant only for the latest arrivals