Effects of internal waves on signal temporal correlation length in the South China Sea

We simulated the temporal correlation of sound transmission using a two-dimensional advective frozen-ocean model with temperature data from a temperature sensor array on a propagation path in the South China Sea (SCS) Experiment 2009, and investigated the relationships of temporal correlation length, source-receiver range, and maximal sound speed fluctuation mainly caused by the solitary internal waves. We found that the temporal correlation length is −1.2-power dependent on source-receiver range and −0.9-power dependent on maximal sound speed fluctuation. The empirical relationship is deduced from one-day environmental measurements in a limited area, needing more works and verification in the future with more acoustic data. But the relationship is useful in many applications in the area of SCS Experiment 2009.