Canale SOFAR: differenze tra le versioni

Versione delle 10:51, 30 giu 2009

Versione delle 10:57, 30 giu 2009

Riga 14:

...for pioneering contributions to wave propagation and scattering]</ref>

[[Immagine:SOFAR.png|thumb|200px|La velocità del suono in funzione della profondità in una posizione a nord delle Hawaii nell'[[Oceano Pacifico]], tratta dal ''[[:en:World Ocean Atlas|World Ocean Atlas]]'' 2005. L'asse del canale SOFAR è ad una profondità di ca. 750 m.]]

<!-- The SOFAR channel is centered on the depth where the cumulative effect of [[temperature]] and [[water pressure]] (and, to a smaller extent, [[salinity]]) combine to create the region of minimum sound speed in the [[Pelagic zone|water column]]. Pressure in the ocean increases linearly with depth, but temperature is more variable, generally falling rapidly in the main [[thermocline]] from the surface to around a thousand meters deep, then remaining almost unchanged from there to the ocean floor in the [[deep sea]]. Near the surface, the rapidly falling temperature causes a decrease in sound speed, or a negative [[sound speed gradient]]. With increasing depth, the increasing pressure causes an increase in sound speed, or a positive sound speed gradient. The depth where the sound speed is at a minimum is called the sound channel axis.