Raman lidar detection of turbulent wakes in the sea

A remote study of a bubble wake in the sea by optical methods was carried out. Evolutions of the laser radiation Mie and Raman backscattering in a near-surface layer under cavitational perturbation induced by a passage of the high-speed boat provided lifetime estimate and dynamics of the bubble wake. Time evolution of the elastic scattering signal decayed completely after 0.5 minutes, while the RS signal exhibited longer life time. A calculated estimate for RS signal attenuation was 120 minutes, which is much longer then results obtained by acoustic methods.