Methods and systems for minimizing RMS travel time error in a seismic data acquisition. Field measurements of source and receiver coordinates, speed of sound in water as a function of depth and time, receiver timing, and clock drift are first collected. The seismic data is then examined to measure travel time from each source to each receiver. A model travel time is computed based on the field measurements. By iteratively perturbing at least one of the field measured data using a look-up table and calculating the travel time after each perturbation until an acceptable RMS error has been achieved, conditioned seismic data that takes into account the dynamic nature of the water column will provide the basis for creating an accurate seismic map that is unaffected by the changing water conditions.