Strategies for linking ocean state uncertainty to acoustic uncertainty

Estimating uncertainty of underwater sound fields caused by partially known environmental conditions is a broad topic with many branches because acoustic fields have many characteristics and many descriptors. Specific field characteristics, each uncertain, influence sound use in specific ways. Multiple descriptors (parameters) of signals of interest, and noise, need to be adequately known to examine use scenarios. This is also true for field simulation, processor simulation, field uncertainty simulation, and processor uncertainty simulation. Parameters should be prioritized for efficient quantification of uncertainty. For example, spatial coherence uncertainty applies to array processing but possibly not to single-sensor processing. Linking environmental uncertainty to field uncertainty, then to task performance uncertainty suffers from the many degrees of freedom present in the environment, and the interconnected effects of the many variable environmental parameters. Here, linkage frameworks for sound within internal waves propagating in variable conditions are examined. Methods appropriate for deterministically defined wave groups are explored, as well as statistically described wave fields. First, wave parameters and parameter uncertainty are specified, then effects on the sound parameters are estimated, as well as derived quantities like probability of detection and direction of arrival. Canyon environments that we have studied with models provide one test bed.