High resolution and efficient oceanographic and acoustic modeling of propagation through mesoscale oceanic features

A procedure is presented for combining the output of advanced multilevel “primitive equation” dynamic oceanographic forecast models with high fidelity underwater acoustic propagation models. This procedure is appropriate for the development of realistic predictions of acoustic transmissions through complicated mesoscale features, such as currents, rings, eddies, and fronts. Examples of oceanographic predictions using the Princeton dynamic ocean model developed by Mellor and Blumberg are displayed graphically for a dataset of the Gulf of Mexico. Results pertinent to data interpolation, the identification of mesoscale oceanic features, and 3‐D visualization are presented. Ocean data are converted to sound‐speed profiles for this region and are interfaced to a range‐dependent parabolic equation (PE) propagation loss model. As a low‐frequency acoustic source is moved successively from shallow to deep water in the Gulf of Mexico, results are given that illustrate large variations in propagation loss to a recei...