Comparison of measured reverberation on the transmission loss data with modelled results on the West Florida continental shelf

Abstract

Acoustic data from the September, 1992 Area Characterization Test (ACT I) are compared to ADAM (Advanced Development Acoustic Model) output. Conduct of harsh shallow water acoustic exercises, and data interpretation mandates that critical path environmental variables are understood. Sediment, bathymetry, temperature, salinity, and wind speed measurements, augmented with archival geophysical data provide input to ADAM, a shallow water range dependent boundary and volume reverberation model. This affords a stateof- the-art depiction of shallow water prediction capability. Measured transmission loss in the 50-100Hz, 100-200Hz, 200-400Hz and 400-800Hz frequency bands are compared to predictions from the Gaussian beam module in ADAM. This methodology will also validate the area geoacoustic characterization by comparing modeled and measured bottom loss. Average reverberation level in the 200-400Hz and 400-800Hz bands from explosive sources and the vertical array top hydrophone at separations from 6 to 13 nm along upslope and downslope propagation paths are compared to ADAM predictions.