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The Heard Island Feasibility Test

SEP 01, 1992
An expedition in the southern Indian Ocean demonstrated that coded underwater acoustic signals can be received worldwideand serve as a method for measuring global ocean warming.
Arthur Baggeroer
Walter Munk

The release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is associated with temperature changes in both the atmosphere and the oceans. The oceans play a vital role in global temperature changes, storing both heat and greenhouse gases. Without the oceans the atmosphere would warm at two to three times greater a rate, other factors remaining equal. To understand and predict global warming, then, it is important to measure, rather than just speculate on, changes in the heat content of the ocean.

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References

  1. 1. W. Munk, C. Wunsch, Deep Sea Res. 26A, 123 (1979).

  2. 2. The Ocean Tomography Group, Nature 299, 121 (1982).https://doi.org/NATUAS

  3. 3. W. Munk, C. Wunsch, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London 307, 439 (1982).https://doi.org/PTRMAD

  4. 4. J. L. Spiesberger, K. Metzger, J. Geophys. Res. 96, 4896 (1991).https://doi.org/JGREA2

  5. 5. W. Munk, A. Forbes, J. Phys. Oceanography 19, 1765 (1989).

  6. 6. A. Bowles, The Marine Mammal Monitoring Program for the Heard Island Feasibility Test, National Marine Fisheries, Natl. Oceanic Atmospheric Admin., Washington, D.C. (1991).

  7. 7. C. Keeling, R. Bacastow, A. Carter, T. Whorf, M. Meinmann, W. Mook, R. Roeloffze, in Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and the Western Americas, Geophys. Monograph 55, D. H. Peterson, ed., Am. Geophys. Union, Washington, D.C. (1991), p. 165.

  8. 8. J. Hansen, S. Lebedeff, J. Geophys. Res. 92, 13345 (1987).https://doi.org/JGREA2

  9. 9. W. Munk, The Heard Island Experiment, Indian inaugural lecture of Int. Sci. Lecture Ser., organized by Natl. Acad. Sci. and Office of Naval Res., November 1990, Natl. Acad. Sci. P., Washington, D.C. (1990).

  10. 10. U. Mikolajewicz, B. Santer, E. Maier‐Reimer, Nature 345, 589 (1990).https://doi.org/NATUAS

  11. 11. P. Stone, Technology Rev., February‐March 1992, p. 32.

  12. 12. W. Munk, W. O’Reilly, J. L. Reid, J. Phys. Oceanography 18, 1876 (1988).

  13. 13. A. B. Baggeroer, I. Dyer, in Seismo‐Acoustics, J. Berkson, T. Akal, eds., Plenum, New York (1986), p. 313.

  14. 14. A. B. Baggeroer, in Applications of Digital Signal Processing, A. V. Oppenheim, ed., Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. (1978), ch. 6.

  15. 15. R. J. Urick, Principles of Underwater Sound for Engineers, McGraw‐Hill, New York (1988).

  16. 16. K. D. Heaney, W. A. Kuperman, E. McDonald, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 2586 (1991).https://doi.org/JASMAN

More about the authors

Arthur Baggeroer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Walter Munk, Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 45, Number 9

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