Sound rules life underwater | Hacker News Reader

Sound rules life underwater

nautil.us

47 pointsdnetesn11 comments

So it really makes you wonder how they process being in range of active sonar. For humans, it seems significantly unpleasant.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/14xu7...

“ Sound waves from military submarine sonar systems can get as loud as 235 decibels. They are able to travel hundreds of miles and can maintain the intensity of 140 decibels as far as 300 miles from the source.”

That’s insane.

https://pressbooks.pub/tropicalmarinebio/chapter/noisy-ocean....

Probably worth checking since this source says loudest sound possible is 194:

https://www.hearingconservation.org/assets/Decibel.pdf

194 decibels is the maximum loudness in air, the maximum in water is higher

Loudest sound in air is 194. In water it's ~270dB.

Sperm whales can produce sounds of 230 decibels so humans aren't the only noise polluters of the ocean. In fact we almost hunted sperm whales to extinction so on net the oceans are probably much quieter than they were.

It’s understood to be quite damaging to wildlife, hence one of the reasons why it is used to rarely.

This is a really short blog post about a book that apparently concentrates on sound for underwater life but for a broader sampling, as recommended by others, An Immense World by Ed Yong among other lifeforms goes into research on ocean and river dwelling creatures and it's alot more than just sound, just the sensors for detecting current/movement and electrical signals and the wider visual spectrum just off the top of my head.

The Sea… where EVERYONE can hear you scream.

(Unless you use radio to scream—it’s Space, on Opposite Day!)

This article ends with a discussion of the impact of the noise of human activity on sea life, and I don't like how it portrays human activity as a negative. "Chronic shipping noise may harm or even break invertebrates’ hair cells, leaving them not only deafened but numb or disoriented." Sounds like they should evolve new, better hair cells soon! Jokes aside, the subtext is "boats are bad". Well, I think global trade is a good thing. How about semantically isolating the noise from the shipping? "The chronic noise from today's shipping may harm ..." Maybe we'll find better propellers.

Otherwise great article. First two parts are very interesting. Worth a read. 10/10

So you're not challenging that human activity is having an impact on sea life .. but you don't want it portrayed as being negative? Because you believe in global trade?

This sort of reeks of "they're less developed and important than us so $&@? 'em"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com