James A. Mercer
Appl. Phys. Lab., Univ. of Washington, 1013 N.E. 40th St., Seattle, WA 98105
For more than a decade, long-range acoustic propagation measurements have been used to remotely infer characteristics of the oceans' interior structure. The most prominent efforts have been those focused on the application of tomographic methods to measure the sound speed and current fields, and by inference the temperature field. To a large degree, the genesis of this activity was earlier measurements taken on the U.S. Navy's undersea surveillance system, and IUSS remains a central part of many experiments being conducted today. This paper will illustrate the importance of the Navy's assets to several recent experiments and will highlight the role of IUSS in the multi-institutional Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC) Program. [Work supported by ONR and ARPA.]