Air temperature profiling over different littoral surfaces

There are many factors that must be considered in the study of atmospheric sound propagation over long distances; these include surface characteristics as well as wind speed and air temperature profiles. This work presents measurements of air temperature profiles over various surfaces. Building a catalogue of this type can enable more realistic case assumptions to be made in an atmospheric acoustic transmission loss model. Accurate air temperature profiles are critical because of the potentially significant impact on the transmission loss predictions. Air temperature profile measurements have been collected by solar radiation shielded temperature loggers mounted 1 m apart on a 7 m mast. Long duration measurements were taken to capture the variability in day and nighttime temperature differentials present over surfaces such as: gravel, vegetated shoreline, marsh grass, lawn grass, water, and asphalt. In particular, measurements performed off shore were done by placing the sensor array on the deck of a pontoon boat. The initial results revealed that this configuration captures a very low elevation warming due to re-radiation from the deck of a boat instead of the true over water temperature. This study highlights the influence of wind speed on the development of the near surface temperature inversions.