J. Gozani L. Boden
Cooperative Inst. for Res. in Environmental Sci./NOAA, Campus Box 449, Boulder, CO 80309-0449
A realistic error analysis of the temperature variability of the oceans as probed by ocean acoustic tomography is presented. Travel-time errors resulting from fluctuating internal and surface waves are important in the analysis of the averaged time delays, which may indicate global warming trends due to the greenhouse effect. The 3-D propagation models through random media are extremely complicated. Propagation of model equations is governed by a set of matrix differential equations, whose elements are obtained by multidimensional oscillatory integration. Analytical and numerical studies have been conducted that show the feasibility of computing the matrix elements 1000 times faster than was previously done. The matrix equation is solved by well-known ordinary differential equation methods. The effects of frequency, trajectory, sound-speed profile, bathymetry, and the variances of internal and surface waves will be discussed.