An analytical formulation for the calculation of the range and depth-dependence of propagation loss in isospeed water is introduced. The range-dependent bathymetry is handled with Weston's ray invariant approach, requiring a gradually varying water depth. The depth dependence of propagation loss is formulated using a transformation from an incoherent mode sum to an integral over angle, in the adiabatic approximation, and the results obtained in this way are tested by comparison with a full adiabatic normal mode sum. The validity of the adiabatic approximation itself is then investigated by means of a comparison with parabolic equation and coupled normal mode results for selected test cases from the Weston Memorial Workshop, held at the University of Cambridge in April 2010. Propagation loss calculations based on different methods are compared. The proposed analytical approach provides practical, fast and accurate results.@en

The propagation of acoustic waves in the ocean strongly depends on the temperature. Low frequency acoustic waves can penetrate the ocean down to depths where few in-situ measurements are available. It is therefore attractive to obtain a measure of the deep ocean temperature from acoustic waves. The latter is especially true if the ambient acoustic noise field can be used instead of deterministic transient signals. In this study the acoustic velocity, and hence the temperature, is derived in an interferometric approach from hydrophone array recordings. The arrays were separated by over 125 km, near Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, at a depth of 800m. Furthermore, the dispersive characteristics of the deep ocean sound channel are resolved based on the retrieved lag times for different modes. In addition, it is shown how the resolution of the interferometric approach can be increased by cross correlating array beams rather than recordings from single-sensor pairs. The observed acoustic lag times between the arrays corresponds well to modeled values, based on full-wave modeling through best-known oceanic models.@en