A frequency‐dependent mechanism for theoretically scattering sound into the deep sound channel is presented. For points sources of sound in the oceanic thermocline, theeffectiveindex of refraction has periodic ripples that are a function of source depth and acoustic frequency. These ripples induce scattering. For sufficiently large ripples, it is sufficient to consider only direct paths and refracted paths with a single vertex in order to ensonify the entire deep sound channel. All profiles considered were assumed to ice depth dependent only.