Determination of acoustic attenuation in the Hudson River Estuary by means of ship noise observations

Abstract

Analysis of sound propagation in a complex urban estuary has application to underwater threat detection systems, underwater communication, and acoustic tomography. One of the most important acoustic parameters, sound attenuation, was analyzed in the Hudson River near Manhattan using measurements of acoustic noise generated by passing ships and recorded by a fixed hydrophone. Analysis of the ship noise level for varying distances allowed estimation of the sound attenuation in the frequency band of 10–80kHz. The effective attenuation coefficient representing the attenuation loss above cylindrical spreading loss had only slight frequency dependence and can be estimated by the frequency independent value of 0.058dB∕m.