Shallow-water acoustic variability experiment (SAVEX15) in the northern East China Sea

Abstract

The SAVEX15 experiment was conducted in shallow water (~100 m deep) in the Northern East China Sea (ECS), ~100 km southwest of Jeju Island, South Korea, over the period 14-28 May 2015. The goal of SAVEX15 was to obtain acoustic and environmental data appropriate for studying the coupling of oceanography, acoustics, and underwater communications in the ECS. Surprisingly, an underwater sound channel (USC) typical in deep water was discovered in this shallow water waveguide with the channel axis at ~40 m, apparently due to the cross-frontal interleaving of water masses carried by the Kuroshio Current and Changjiang river discharge. This talk presents an overview of SAVEX15 including preliminary research results.