Review of ocean-acoustic models

This paper describes acoustic models that can generate analytical metrics in support of naval operations, particularly in coastal oceans. Coastal environments are generally characterized by high spatial and temporal variabilities. When coupled with acoustic spectral dependencies of the surface and bottom boundaries, these natural variabilities make coastal regions very complex acoustic environments. Thus, accurate modeling of the acoustic environment is essential for prediction of sonar performance in coastal oceans. The current inventory of ocean-acoustic models comprises 126 propagation models, 19 noise models, 26 reverberation models and 34 sonar-performance models. Approximately 18 percent of this inventory is tailored for shallow-water applications. When coupled with coastal atmosphere-ocean models, these ocean-acoustic models can generate sophisticated prognostic and diagnostic metrics in support of naval operations in coastal oceans.