Estimation of sounding uncertainty from measurments of water mass variability

Description

Analysis techniques are proposed that allow for estimation of potential sounding uncertainty due to water mass variability based solely on high temporal and/or spatial resolution observations of either sound speed or oceanographic measurements of temperature and salinity. The techniques do not require sounding data, thus analyses can be tailored to match any survey system; this allows for pre-analysis campaigns to optimize survey instrumentation, sound speed profiling locations/rates and survey line spacing such that a desired sounding accuracy can be maintained. In addition to this, the output of the methods can provide a higher fidelity estimation of sounding uncertainty due to water mass variability as compared to existing uncertainty models in common use. The analysis techniques are used to assess an extensive oceanographic data set collected in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) in an effort to provide water mass sampling guidelines for current and future seabed mapping efforts in the CAA. In particular, the problem of mapping while in transit is investigated with oceanographic climatological grids of temperature and salinity being examined as a potential source of sound speed information when underway sampling of the water column is not possible.