Home▸Climate, Ecology & Environment▸Ocean Sound Range 2D: Frequency-Dependent Attenuation

Ocean Sound Range 2D: Frequency-Dependent Attenuation

Interactive 2D simulator of underwater sound propagation: pick a real source (blue whale, humpback song, dolphin clicks, a container ship) and watch Thorp's frequency-dependent absorption plus geometric spreading decide how far the sound actually carries — with a live received-level-vs-range curve overlay for every source.

Climate, Ecology & Environment2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

Details

CategoryClimate, Ecology & Environment

RenderingCanvas 2D

DifficultyModerate

Target FPS60

ControlsPreset buttons for real sources (blue whale, humpback, dolphin click, container ship); frequency slider (10 Hz-200 kHz, log); source level slider (150-230 dB); listener range slider (0.1-3000 km, log) also draggable directly on the 2D panel; spherical vs cylindrical spreading toggle; live received-level-vs-range chart overlaying all four presets plus the custom frequency.

ocean acousticsunderwater soundThorp absorptionSOFAR channelmarine bioacousticstransmission loss

Related simulations

Dynamic Ocean Acoustic Monitoring SimulationThis simulation demonstrates how acoustic monitoring is used to study underwater…

Marine Biology Acoustics: Soundscapes of the DeepEmit whale-call pulses underwater and watch spherical wavefronts expand, attenuate and…

Ocean Acoustic Monitoring SimulatorWatch a seafloor hydrophone array catch a whale call or a ship's engine noise and… ⊞ All 469 in Climate, Ecology & Environment →

Underwater sound doesn't just get quieter with distance — it gets quieter at wildly different rates depending on its pitch. This 2D simulator models real underwater acoustic transmission loss: geometric spreading (spherical in the open deep ocean, cylindrical inside a sound channel) combined with Thorp's frequency-dependent seawater absorption formula. Pick a real source — a 20 Hz blue whale call, a 3 kHz humpback song, a 110 kHz dolphin echolocation click, or a 100 Hz container-ship engine — or dial in your own frequency and source level, then drag a listener buoy out along a logarithmic range axis from 0.1 km to 3,000 km and watch the received level, the detection verdict, and a live overlay of received-level-vs-range curves for every source update in real time.

⚙ Under the hood

Pick a real underwater sound source — a 20 Hz blue whale call, a humpback song, a dolphin echolocation click, or a container ship — and watch Thorp's frequency-dependent absorption formula and geometric spreading decide how far it actually travels, with a live received-level-vs-range curve overlaid for every source on a 2D range cross-section.

ocean acousticsunderwater soundThorp absorptionSOFAR channelmarine bioacousticstransmission loss

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install