Kevin LePage
Henrik Schmidt
Dept. of Ocean Eng., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139
Low-frequency (f<<100 Hz) boundary interaction loss in the central Arctic has been observed to exceed the losses that may be predicted by free surface Kirchhoff or MSP scattering theories, 2-D boss scattering models, or large elastic feature scattering arguments. In addition, the measured frequency dependence of the scattering loss in the Arctic ((proportional to)f[sup 1.5]) is lower than that which is predicted with either the boss or the large elastic feature scattering models. Here a self-consistent elastic perturbation theory is used to estimate coherent boundary interaction loss for the Arctic scenario. Using this theory it is found that the elasticity of the ice canopy can account for a substantial decrease in the local coherent reflection coefficient in comparison with a rough free surface interaction, while the frequency dependence of the loss remains proportional to f[sup 2]. Using acoustics measurements obtained by a horizontal array under the Arctic ice, a ML inversion for the ice canopy roughness statistics is obtained using the perturbation theory, and these parameters are used to estimate the loss per interaction. This loss, when combined with a ray cycle distance taken from the relevant literature, yields an estimate of scattering propagation loss (dB/km), which closely matches the data in the low-frequency regime. When the canonical roughness parameters and cycle distances from the literature are used in the theory, the estimated loss is lower, but improvements are still obtained over the free surface results. [Work supported by ONR.]