Acoustic scattering from ocean microbubble plumes in the 100 Hz to 2 kHz region

The observed levels of high sea‐state surface‐related reverberation are modeled as scattering from plumes of microbubbles. The plume model is constrained as much as possible by existing microbubble data, particularly the average bubble content as a function of depth measured by Farmer and Vagle [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 86, 1897–1908 (1989)]. The Chapman–Harris [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 34, 1592–1597 (1962)] and Chapman–Scott [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 36, 1735–1737 (1964)] experimental levels are fit with reasonable parameter choices. Frequency and grazing angle dependence are predicted by the model. Wind speed dependence is not addressed in this paper.