Changing Oceans

CREDITS: (TOP) JOHN CALAMBOKIDIS/CASCADIA RESEARCH, WWW.CASCADIARESEARCH.ORG; (BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT) ADAPTED FROM B. SOUTHALL/NMFS/NOAA, JUPITERIMAGES; ADAPTED FROM NOAA/STELLWAGEN BANK NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY

A shifting soundscape. Increased shipping has made the ocean noisier, potentially disrupting communication among whales and other marine life.

NEWS

A Push for Quieter Ships

Although sonar and air guns have grabbed headlines, researchers say the cacophony from ships creates far more ocean noise
FROM A DRIFTING BOAT, THE OCEAN OFF

Massachusetts can seem like one of the quietest places on Earth. But Leila Hatch isnt fooled. Over the past 4 years, the marine ecologist has helped lead studies at the Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary that are documenting how human activities are ramping up the regions undersea noiseand highlighting just how difcult it may be to turn down the volume. Were getting a much better understanding of how much sound is in the sanctuary and where its coming from, says Hatch, who works for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Sophisticated acoustic sensors, for instance, have enabled researchers to assemble a detailed noise budget for the 2200-square-kilometer preserve. It includes the musical calls of whales and sh and the rumbles created by wind and rain. But it also documents the mechanical thrashing of giant ships steaming into nearby Boston Harbor. Those ships can actually double the noise levels in some parts of the sanctuary, notes Hatch, swamping the low-frequency wavelengths that whales and other sea creaOn the same frequency. Large ships produce sounds in the same bandwidths that sh and some marine mammals use (right). The acoustic clutter can be intense in heavily traveled sea lanes (far right) of the Boston Harbor channel as it passes through the Stellwagen marine sanctuary off Massachusetts. 1502

tures use to communicate, nd mates, and navigate their watery world. Researchers worry that the cacophony is making it even harder for these creatures to overcome the numerous human threatsfrom toxic pollution to overexploitationthat have already pushed some to the edge of extinction. Stellwagens monitoring program, one of the worlds most intensive, has implications well beyond the marine sanctuary. It has helped focus attention on the growing acoustic clutter created by the worlds nearly 100,000 large commercial ships. Although other sources of ocean noiseincluding military sonar, pile drivers, and the undersea air guns that scientists and energy companies use to map the sea oorhave generated more controversy because of the risks to sea life (Science, 11 January 2008, p. 147), researchers say everyday ship trafc is arguably the seas most pressing sound problem. Over the past 50 years, the growing trade eet has contributed to a 32-fold increase in lowfrequency noise in some parts of the ocean; thats a doubling of the din every decade. Shipping may be responsible for 90% of the sound energy we add to the ocean, but it

Sound pollution The Stellwagen sanctuarys innovative monitoring effort is sure to get attention at the meeting. Almost from the moment the U.S. government preserve was created in 1992, its managers have moved to understand how ocean noise might be inuencing Stellwagens animals, particularly endangered humpback and right whales. In 1996, researchers began their rst efforts to measure noise levels and by 2004 had dotted the sanctuarys waters with acoustic buoys and sea oormounted instruments. In part, the devicesmany built at Cornell Universitywere designed to listen to the thousands of tugs, tankers, and cargo carriers that ply the Boston shipping channel, which cuts through the sanctuary. Other researchers
*Second International Conference on the Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life, Cork, Ireland, 1520 August 2010.

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MASSACHUSETTS Primary Shipping Noise

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seems like we spend most of our time talking about the other 5 or 10% of the problem, says Brandon Southall, a former leader of U.S. government efforts to study and regulate ocean noise and now a consultant with SEA Inc. in Santa Cruz, California. In part, thats because ships typically arent covered by the worlds few laws that deal with ocean noise. The conversation, however, is shifting. Recently, a group of shipping industry ofcials, scientists, and government regulators began to examine strategies for slashing lowfrequency shipping noise. Engineers say such a reduction is technologically feasible, but the costsand opposition from some shipping companiescould be formidable. Still, shipping noise is an issue that is getting more attention, says acoustician Arthur Popper of the University of Maryland, College Park, who studies the effects of sound on sh and is organizing a major international conference* on ocean noise set for Ireland in August.

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have attached sensitive electronic ears to some of Stellwagens humpback whales so as to understand how the whales respond to different kinds of sounds. And last year, scientists from Cornell and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts unveiled a unique network of 10 buoy-mounted sensors that are specially tuned to pick up the calls of right whales and then warn passing ships in a bid to prevent deadly collisions. Together, such efforts have provided an unusually detailed sound portrait of this small sliver of ocean. Researchers, for instance, now know how the sanctuarys soundscape can vary by place, time of day, and ocean conditions. And they can track both passing ships and whales. The data are unsettling. One potential problem is that shipping noise consistently occurs at levels loud enoughand within frequencies low enough (between 10 and 1000 hertz)to make it hard for whales to maintain acoustic contact, Hatch and her colleagues concluded in a 2008 paper in Environmental Management. The study, which combined acoustic data and individual ship movements, found that large tankers produced twice the acoustic signal of cargo ships and were more than 100 times noisier than research ships (which tend to be smaller and designed to be quieter). Because saltwater is such an efcient conductor of low-frequency sound, the researchers calculated that a single large vessel could transmit its sound throughout most of the sanctuary. One worry is that the din is essentially deafening North Atlantic right whales, of which fewer than 400 remain. In a quiet ocean, one whales calls might be discernible to a mate or family member swimming 20 or more kilometers away. In noisy Stellwagen, however, that range is reduced, possibly down to just a kilometer or two, estimates a team led by acoustician Christopher Clark of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (see gure, above). The whales communication spacethe three-dimensional bubble in which it can hear and be heardis seriously compromised by noise from commercial shipping trafc, they concluded last year in an ocean noise special issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series. So far, its hard to know if the cacophony has harmed the whales. Drawing on studies of chronic noises impacts on land-dwelling mammals, however, some researchers predict shipping noise is increasing the animals stress levels. A few studies have also shown that the whales call less in noisy areas. They may also

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Hear me? Shipping noise may reduce the communication range (red circle) of some baleen whales, such as the North Atlantic right whale (inset), by 90% (top right).

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be retuning their calls in a bid to be heard. Over the past several decades, for instance, the fundamental frequency of contact calls made by North Atlantic right whales has risen by about an octave, according to studies by bioacoustician Susan Parks of Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Although such adjustments might seem minor, researchers say they could carry signicant survival costs if they even modestly reduce breeding or hunting success. Some sh may be similarly affected, but assessing noise effects in the wild is extremely difcult, says Popper. Silencing ships Despite the uncertainty, some parts of the shipping industry are taking the issue seriously. At a 2008 meeting in Hamburg, Germanya hub for world shipbuilders the Darmstadt-based Okeanos Foundation for the Sea persuaded several industry leaders to declare vessel noise sciencemag.org a global problem and An interview set a goal of freezing it with a scientist studying ocean noise. at current levels within 10 years and then reducing it by several-fold within 30 years. In particular, the leaders called on the International Maritime Organization (IMO)a United Nations group that oversees shippingto convene a working group to explore technical options for quieting ships. The United States has since tapped Stellwagens Hatch to advise its member of the panel. The goal is to take a holistic approach to the rising level of ambient shipping noise, which everyone agrees is real, she says. If we can push down that overall level, we know we can increase the communication space for a lot of animals. There are plenty of ways to make ships quieter, shipping experts have told IMO in written comments. The biggest need, they say, is to

CREDITS: ADAPTED FROM C. W. CLARK/CORNELL UNIVERSITY; (MAP SOURCE) GOOGLE EARTH; (INSET) NOAA

Online

reduce the tendency of ship propellers to cavitate, or produce noise when tiny air bubbles that form around the blades burst. By redesigning the propellersand changing the way water is funneled into themshipbuilders could drastically cut sound production under normal operating conditions. Other gains could come from mounting noisy engines and machinery on sound-insulating platforms, streamlining boxy hulls now optimized for storage, and slowing cruising speeds. In addition to reducing noise, the experts say those changes would help companies reduce fuel use and pollution. Essentially, a noisy ship is an inefcient ship, says Hatch. Until now, there havent been good enough financial and environmental reasons not to drive a shoebox through the ocean. Now, there are a lot of good ones. Retrotting existing ships would be costly, however, according to an analysis commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Geneva, Switzerland. Quieting an oil tanker, for instance, could cost $2.8 million, an expense the highly decentralized and often nancially precarious shipping industry is unlikely to pay without new regulations. Yet few observers see new rules coming anytime soon. Silencing advocates say it may be easier to encourage shipbuilders to start building quieter vessels, especially if IMO can come up with some clear guidelines. But that could be a decades-long process to update the current eet, says Hatch. Despite the slow pace, shes happy to see her eld move beyond simply documenting the ocean-noise problem to trying to solve it. We clearly need more science, Hatch says. But I think we can also start nding better ways of doing what we need to do in the ocean without creating unnecessary noise. Like everyone, shes just seeking a little more peace and quiet. DAVID MALAKOFF
David Malakoff is a writer in Alexandria, Virginia.

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