NESMA & PASSENGERS: Ocean Acoustics at the New England Seamounts

The New England Seamounts Acoustics (NESMA) experiment and Predictions of AcousticS with Smart Experimental Networks of GlidERS (PASSENGERS) are two concurrent Office of Naval Research initiatives studying how ocean variability shapes underwater sound propagation where the Gulf Stream meets rugged deep-ocean topography — NESMA at the New England Seamounts and the PASSENGERS departmental research initiative in the Atlantis II Seamount region. C4PO contributed to both at once: working from the sailing research vessel Marie Tharp with the Ocean Research Project, our glider team conducted autonomous SeaExplorer glider operations during the 2024 field campaigns — alongside partners including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — to characterize the mesoscale and submesoscale structure of the temperature and salinity fields through which the experiments’ acoustic signals travel.