Title: Progresses and advances in Arctic underwater acoustics study

Author(s): LI Qihu; HUANG Haining; YIN Li; WEI Chonghua; LI Yu; XUE Shanhua; LUAN Jingde;

Affiliation(s): Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Naval Research Academy

Abstract: As a part of underwater acoustics, the study and development of Arctic Acoustics is later than underwater acoustics about several hundred years. After World War II, the study of Arctic Acoustics attracts many interests by some developed countries, especially U.S. and pre-Soviet Union. The research works obviously have some kinds of cold war brand. After the Cold War, with the gradual warming trend of Arctic area, the ocean & acoustic environment in Arctic and its adjacent area have been considerably concerned. The 8 countries of Arctic rim organized exclusive “Arctic Council” in 1996. The white paper of “China Arctic Policy” was published in January 26, 2018, the Chinese government declared that China is a close Arctic country, and is the responsible stakeholder of Arctic interests. The new advances in Arctic research works axe introduced in this paper, including the results of scientific survey and studies about Arctic underwater acoustics of Chinese researchers. It is showed that the Arctic underwater acoustical research area is not only parallely copy the topics what traditional underwater acoustics covered, e.g. environment noise, reverberation, and propagation, but also the topics which is specifically based on the Arctic environment. Some of these research fields cannot be included in the traditional shallow water, deep water acoustics, e.g. the ice-water interface feature, ice covered semi-acoustic channel effect, the communication and navigation of UUV in the condition of under ice, and the adaptation of sonar technique, equipment in the ice-covered environment, etc.