The effect of seafloor roughness on passive estimates of the seabed reflection coefficient

Abstract

In this work, a model is developed for the effect of seafloor interface roughness on passive estimates of the reflection coefficient. The main result is an expression for the total intensity reflection coefficient, with separate coherent and incoherent contributions. Assumptions of this model include constant sound speed in the ocean, stationary and Gaussian seafloor roughness, and ambient noise. Numerical examples for the coherent, incoherent, and total contributions to the intensity reflection coefficient are presented for halfspace and layered environments—all using the small slope approximation. To illustrate the potential parameter errors that results from using a flat interface wave model when roughness is present, a geoacoustic inversion is performed using the proposed model as input data. A joint roughness-geoacoustic inversion of simulated data using the proposed model was also performed. It was found that the true roughness and geoacoustic parameters can be inverted using this model, but the sensitivity to the outer scale of the rough surface has the highest error compared to the other parameters.