{"id":626247,"date":"2025-12-11T12:28:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T12:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626247\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T12:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T12:28:24","slug":"year-of-the-quiet-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626247\/","title":{"rendered":"Year of the quiet ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plus, degraded and poorly managed ocean ecosystems have altered the marine biophony. With the loss of kelp forests<\/a> and coral reefs<\/a>, melting glaciers<\/a>, overfishing<\/a> and underwater mining<\/a>, essential habitats for sea life are stripped away \u2013 reducing the abundance<\/a> of noise-producing animals.<\/p>\n

\"AIMS\/AIMS\/ Daneil EstcourtResearchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science sink beneath the waves to study the sounds of Ningaloo Reef, Australia (Credit: AIMS\/ Daneil Estcourt)<\/p>\n

According to Simpson, the sounds of today’s ocean are very different from those of preindustrial times. “The ocean soundscape used to be made up of the biophony \u2013 the animal sounds \u2013 and the geophony \u2013 the sounds of the Earth, rain, wind and currents. But now it’s the anthrophony as well, for example the sound of motorboats on coral reefs.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anthropogenic ocean noise \u2013 for example, from vessels or construction \u2013 can mask animal noises, preventing them from communicating with one another, just as it would above the surface. “It’s like being in a bar,” explains Parsons. “If there’s no one else in the bar, you can probably hear your friend. But if the bar is full of people, the distance over which you can hear each other is a lot smaller,” he says.<\/p>\n

It’s not just the frequency or intensity of the noise, it’s also the unpredictability of the sound’s source that can be disruptive. “If we live in a city, we’re not surprised by traffic noise, but if you live in the ocean and a boat suddenly drives over the top of you, you wouldn’t be expecting it,” says Simpson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plus, degraded and poorly managed ocean ecosystems have altered the marine biophony. With the loss of kelp forests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-626247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115700939633468942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}