Method for Plotting Sound Ray Paths in the Potential Layer from Bathythermograms

Abstract

Vertical distribution of temperature in the oceans influences greatly the sound propagation, particularly in bending the rays from their straight line paths. The changes in temperature structure are more common in the surface layers due to heating, cooling, mixing, etc., and contribute for the formation of several layers with different temperature gradients and thicknesses. Plotting of sound ray paths for such bathythermograms becomes difficult and also time-consuming if all these layers are to be considered separately. A method has been evolved which reduces the layers in the potential layer to a maximum of 3 layers irrespective of the number of layers present in the potential layer. The method is applied to several bathythermograph records and the ray paths plotted by this method are found almost similar to those plotted for the original structure of the record.