Ocean‐basin scale inversion of reverberation data.

An optimization method for numerically estimating scattering strength over large areas of the ocean floor is under development. A cost function comparing beamformed towed‐array reverberation data with replica reverberation data derived from an ocean‐basin scattering strength model is minimized. Data spanning a sufficient set of source locations and/or receiver orientations are inverted simultaneously. Inherent to this process is also the removal of the right‐left ambiguity of the beamformed data during the inversion. The method has been successfully applied to synthetic data. It is presently being used to analyze bottom reverberation data acquired during the ONR/SRP Acoustic Reconnaissance Cruise of August 1991. In conjunction, the adiabatic mode formulation [Kuperman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 125–133 (1991)] is being used to efficiently model acoustic propagation over the variety of source locations required.