Calculations of internal-wave-induced fluctuations in ocean-acoustic propagation

Variability in the ocean sound-speed field on time scales of a few hours and horizontal spatial scales of a few kilometers is often dominated by the random, anisotropic fluctuations caused by the internal-wave field. Results have been compiled from analytical approaches and from numerical simulations using the parabolic approximation into an efficient set of algorithms for calculating approximations to internal-wave effects on temporal and spatial coherences, coherent bandwidths, and regimes of acoustic fluctuation behavior. These approximate formulas account for the background, deterministic, sound-speed profile and the anisotropy of the internal-wave field, and they also allow for the incorporation of experimentally determined profiles of sound speed, buoyancy frequency, and sound-speed variance. The algorithms start from the geometrical-acoustics approximation, in which the field transmitted from a source can be described completely in terms of rays whose characteristics are determined by the sound speed as a function of position. Ordinary integrals along these rays provide approximations to acoustic-fluctuation quantities due to the statistical effects of internal waves, including diffraction. The results from the algorithms are compared with numerical simulations and with experimental results for long-range propagation in the deep ocean.