Acoustic Monitoring of Global Ocean Variability
2007
Munk, Walter H.
The ocean circulation is known to be a central element in determining the present climate state and to be crucial in understanding how it might change in the future. However, our current understanding of the ocean is so primitive that forecasts of future climate states much be regarded as mainly speculative. Central to the problem is the very great difficulty of observing the state of the ocean today, and of determining whether it is changing to any significant extent. The concept for Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate being described by this document focuses on the critical role of the world's oceans in the process of global change. A research and engineering program to create a network of acoustic transmission paths represents the first step to measure long-term temperature change in the ocean (and hence by inference, atmospheric and climatic trends). This network can build on the results of The Heard Island Feasibility Test, of using very long-range underwater sound transmissions to measure oceanic temperature on basin scales. It involves a multiyear program to monitor the ocean on a global basis by installing a system of acoustic sources and receives at sites that provide adequate spatial sampling, and are technically, politically and logistically feasible.
Mostrar más [+] Menos [-]Prepared in cooperation with Washington Univ., Seattle. Applied Physics Lab.
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