Resumen
The results obtained in the present research show the complex nature of the propagation of sound signals and noise in the conditions of the shallow waters of the Arctic basin shelf. Despite the rather simple hydrology of the water column, a high degree of diversity of the characteristics of the sub-bottom layer was observed here, and a statistical approach was applied to describe the influence of this layer. Analysis of the fluctuation nature of the signal indicates the need to search for new approaches to processing information received by acoustic measuring systems in the Arctic seas. The quantitative estimates obtained by the authors of the degree of influence of random bottom parameters in typical shallow-water Arctic regions can be used to predict propagation losses of low and medium-frequency sound signals, which is important in underwater communications, detection problems and environmental issues of reducing the impact of anthropogenic signals and noise on marine mammals. The statistical analysis performed in this paper is useful for predicting the presence of bottom areas with gas-saturated sediments. In addition, pronounced fluctuations in the parameters of the sub-bottom layer often make the known deterministic approaches to solving inverse problems of reconstructing the characteristics of the medium from the measured acoustic field inadequate in the Arctic seas and require the development of statistical methods.