Depth dependence of wind-driven, broadband ambient noise in the Philippine Sea

J Acoust Soc Am. 2013 Jan;133(1):62-71. doi: 10.1121/1.4768885.

Abstract

In 2009, as part of PhilSea09, the instrument platform known as Deep Sound was deployed in the Philippine Sea, descending under gravity to a depth of 6000 m, where it released a drop weight, allowing buoyancy to return it to the surface. On the descent and ascent, at a speed of 0.6 m/s, Deep Sound continuously recorded broadband ambient noise on two vertically aligned hydrophones separated by 0.5 m. For frequencies between 1 and 10 kHz, essentially all the noise was found to be downward traveling, exhibiting a depth-independent directional density function having the simple form cos θ, where θ ≤ 90° is the polar angle measured from the zenith. The spatial coherence and cross-spectral density of the noise show no change in character in the vicinity of the critical depth, consistent with a local, wind-driven surface-source distribution. The coherence function accurately matches that predicted by a simple model of deep-water, wind-generated noise, provided that the theoretical coherence is evaluated using the local sound speed. A straightforward inversion procedure is introduced for recovering the sound speed profile from the cross-correlation function of the noise, returning sound speeds with a root-mean-square error relative to an independently measured profile of 8.2 m/s.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics* / instrumentation
  • Algorithms
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Motion
  • Noise*
  • Oceans and Seas
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Sound Spectrography
  • Time Factors
  • Water*
  • Wind*

Substances

  • Water