Effect of anisotropy on intensity fluctuations in oceanic turbulence

For an optical spherical wave propagating in an oceanic turbulent medium, the effect of anisotropy on the received intensity fluctuations is investigated. For different anisotropy factors, the variations of the scintillation index vs. the ratio that determines the relative strength of temperature and salinity in the index fluctuations, the rate of dissipation of the mean squared temperature, the rate of dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy, viscosity, link length and the wavelength are plotted. It is found that, for all the oceanic turbulence and the link parameters of interest, as the medium becomes more anisotropic, the intensity of the optical spherical wave fluctuates less. It is concluded that the performance of an optical wireless communication systems (OWCS) operating in anisotropic oceanic turbulence is better than the performance of OWCS operating in isotropic oceanic turbulence.