3D Acoustic Mapping Of The Kuroshio (Taiwan Current) Off The Southeast Coast Of Taiwan
Abstract
Ocean acoustic tomography (OAT) is a powerful tool that can estimate the structure of sound speed (mainly proportional to temperature) and current in the ocean (Munk et al., 1995). Other than coastal sea studies (e.g., Park and Kaneko, 2000), most previous experiments have been carried out in the open ocean, characterized with a full structure of the underwater sound channel (Worcester, 1985; Cornuelle et al., 1985; Howe et al., 1987; Cornuelle et al., 1993; Dushaw et al., 1994; Send et al., 1995; Dushaw et al., 1995; Yuan et al., 1999). However its application to shallower regions with a sound speed profile (SSP) decreasing toward the bottom from the surface was limited because of the difficulty of ray resolvability (DeFerrari and Nguyen, 1986). The same reason leads to its infrequent application to the western boundary current regions, located along the continental slopes. An OAT system, placed near the underwater sound channel axis where only its upper half is constructed, provides an efficient method to measure the full-depth profile of current in the Luzon Strait with the Kuroshio intrusion and strong internal tide activity, as demonstrated in the 2008 Luzon Strait experiment (Taniguchi et al., 2010). In this study we apply the strategy employed by the 2008 Luzon Strait experiment to an analysis of acoustic tomographic data obtained in the Kuroshio southeast of Taiwan in 2009. The emphasis is on determining the time-dependent current profile above the sound channel axis that is near the bottom.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA574938
Entities
People
- Arata Kaneko
Organizations
- Hiroshima University