One of the most dominant sources of error in the estimation of sonar performance in shallow water is the geoacoustic description of the sea floor. As reviewed in this paper, various investigators have studied the possible use of ambient noise to infer some key parameters such as the critical angle, geoacoustic properties, or bottom loss. A simple measurement approach to infer the bottom loss from ambient noise measurement on a vertical line array (VLA) is very attractive from environmental and operational perspectives. This paper presents a sensitivity study conducted with simulations and measurements that demonstrates mitigating factors to maximize the accuracy of estimated bottom loss. This paper quantifies the robustness and operational constraints of this measurement approach using an ambient noise model that accounts for wind, shipping, and thermal noise. Also demonstrated are the effects of unaccounted water absorption, array tilt, nearby ship interference, flow noise, calibration error, and array deformation on sonar performance estimation. VLA measurements collected during the Asian Seas International Acoustics Experiment in May-June 2001 were also processed to validate the approach via comparisons with measured bottom loss and transmission loss.