Abstract
Over the past decade oceanographers have become increasingly aware of an intense and compact ocean ‘mesoscale’ eddy structure (the ocean weather) that is superimposed on a generally sluggish large-scale circulation (the ocean climate). Traditional ship-based observing systems are not adequate for monitoring the ocean at mesoscale resolution. A 1981 experiment mapped the waters within a 300 × 300 km square south-west of Bermuda, using a peripheral array of moored midwater acoustic sources and receivers. The variable acoustic travel times between all source–receiver pairs were used to construct the three-dimensional (time-variable) eddy fields, using inverse theory. Preliminary results from inversions are consistent with the shipborne and airborne surveys.
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Behringer, D., Birdsall, T., Brown, M. et al. A demonstration of ocean acoustic tomography. Nature 299, 121–125 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/299121a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/299121a0
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