Reconstructions of time-evolving sound-speed fields perturbed by deformed and dispersive internal solitary waves in shallow water

The high-fidelity reconstruction of sound speeds is crucial for predicting acoustic propagation in shallow water where internal solitary waves (ISWs) are prevalent. Mapping temperatures from time series to spatial fields is an approach widely used to reproduce the sound speed perturbed by deformed internal waves. However, wave-shape distortions are inherent in the modeling results. This paper analyzes the formation mechanism and dynamic behavior of the distorted waveform that is shown to arise from the mismatch between the modeled and real propagation speeds of individual solitons within an ISW packet. To mitigate distortions, a reconstruction method incorporating the dispersion property of an ISW train is proposed here. The principle is to assign each soliton a real speed observed in the experiment. Then, the modeled solitons propagate at their intrinsic speeds, and the packet disperses naturally with time. The method is applied to reconstruct the sound speed perturbed by ISWs in the South China Sea. The mean and median of the root-mean-square error between the reconstructed and measured sound speeds are below 2 m/s. The modeled shape deformations and packet dispersion agree well with observations, and the waveform distortion is reduced compared with the original method. This work ensures the high fidelity of waveguide-environment reconstructions and facilitates the investigation of sound propagation in the future.