History and current status of sound propagation in a turbulent atmosphere

Sound propagation in a turbulent atmosphere is important in many applications such as source localization, auralization of flying aircraft, sonic boom propagation, mitigation of noise pollution, and acoustic remote sensing of the atmosphere. This review presents the history of research on sound in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and its current state. Connections to the broader field of wave propagation in random media are outlined. The following topics are considered: spectra of the temperature and wind velocity fluctuations in the ABL, the statistical moments of sound signals for line-of-sight propagation, near-ground propagation, sound scattering, probability density functions of acoustic signals, and numerical methods. Possible future extensions of the results are discussed.