L.O. Júnior, H. Chognot and S.M. Jesus,
LARSyS, University of Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
Comments: download presentation pdf.
Ref.: in UACE'2025, June 2025.
Abstract:
In the present work we describe the methodologies and achievements towards the development of
an ocean sound modeling tool to be used within the EU Horizon project TRIDENT to monitor noise
from deep-sea exploitation activities. This includes the strategy used to conjugate the various
input data, the optimization and sensitivity tests performed and preliminary validation results.
The monitoring tool is based on a ray tracing model fed with marine traffic information from AIS,
bathymetry, temperature and wind data from data bases. The model is used to simulate the underwater
ambient sound of the surroundings of a likely exploitable seamount. To optimize the run time and
assure minimum output discrepancies, we compared simulations from different bathymetry resolution,
Nx2D vs 3D, number of vertical beams and maximum range. Preliminary comparisons with field observations
from a sparse vertical array and an acoustic glider indicate that the model generally predicts well
the dominant level of each 1/3 octave band center frequency. However, the occurrence of such levels
can be overestimated by up to 40%. At present, we are dedicated to identifying the main source of
differences, that can be due to averaging, processing of observations and also due to hydrophone
calibration or self-noise.