Climate-change induced melting is leading to accelerating ice loss at tidewater glaciers worldwide. A significant component of the freshwater flux from these glaciers arises from submarine melting at the glacier-ocean interface. This melting causes a distinct acoustic signature due to the release of pressurized bubbles underwater, opening up the possibility of monitoring this phenomenon on a large scale using passive acoustic systems. To evaluate the use of sound in monitoring submarine glacier melting, we made acoustic measurements using vertical hydrophone arrays in four glacial bays in Svalbard in 2019. As the recording array was moved away from the glacier, the variation in the recorded acoustic level due to melting ice did not follow a uniformly decreasing trend as one might expect. Moreover, the acoustic intensities at different glaciers were clustered at different levels. These observations indicate that the geometry of the glacier-ocean interface, thermohaline structure of the underwater channel and presence of floating ice in the bay played a role in determining the acoustic field. Most of this variation can be explained through propagation modeling. Moving forward, this model-based interpretation of the field will play an integral part in inverting the sound to estimate the submarine melt rate.
Skip Nav Destination
,
,
,
,
,
,
Article navigation
October 2021
Meeting abstract. No PDF available.
October 01 2021
Spatial variation in acoustic field due to submarine melting in glacial bays
Hari Vishnu;
Hari Vishnu
Acoust. Res. Lab., National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore
Search for other works by this author on:
Grant B. Deane;
Grant B. Deane
Scripps Inst. of Oceanogr., Code 0238, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0238, [email protected]
Search for other works by this author on:
Mandar Chitre;
Mandar Chitre
Acoust. Res. Lab., National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore
Search for other works by this author on:
Oskar Glowacki;
Oskar Glowacki
Inst. of Geophys., Polish Acad. of Sci., Warsaw, Poland
Search for other works by this author on:
M. Dale Stokes;
M. Dale Stokes
Scripps Inst. of Oceanogr., La Jolla, CA
Search for other works by this author on:
Mateusz Moskalik;
Mateusz Moskalik
Inst. of Geophys., Polish Acad. of Sci., Warsaw, Poland
Search for other works by this author on:
Hayden A. Johnson
Hayden A. Johnson
Scripps Inst. of Oceanogr., Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Search for other works by this author on:
Hari Vishnu
Grant B. Deane
Mandar Chitre
Oskar Glowacki
M. Dale Stokes
Mateusz Moskalik
Hayden A. Johnson
Acoust. Res. Lab., National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 150, A327–A328 (2021)
Citation
Hari Vishnu, Grant B. Deane, Mandar Chitre, Oskar Glowacki, M. Dale Stokes, Mateusz Moskalik, Hayden A. Johnson; Spatial variation in acoustic field due to submarine melting in glacial bays. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 October 2021; 150 (4_Supplement): A327–A328. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0008459
Download citation file:
Citing articles via
Focality of sound source placement by higher (ninth) order ambisonics and perceptual effects of spectral reproduction errors
Nima Zargarnezhad, Bruno Mesquita, et al.
Related Content
Depth-dependence of the underwater noise emission from melting glacier ice
JASA Express Lett. (February 2023)
Vertical directionality and spatial coherence of the sound field in glacial bays in Hornsund Fjord
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (December 2020)
Directionality of the ambient noise field in an Arctic, glacial bay
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (October 2014)
Vertical line array measurements of the sound radiated by melting glaciers in Hornsund Fjord
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (October 2020)
Depth dependence of acoustic signals produced by bubble release events in melting glacier ice
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (October 2020)