In 1967, humans realized for the first time that the clicks, croons, and other noises made by whales weren’t just random sounds; they were “songs,” of a sort. Biologist Roger Payne noted complex patterns in whale songs that resembled human speech or even poetry.
Some whales repeated ending phrases; some even used a form of repetition reminiscent of a sonata. Those songs changed throughout the year, depending on where whales were in their migration patterns and life cycles. What’s more, these underwater calls had the power to travel far—as much as 20,000 kilometers.
The more scientists study whales, the more it becomes clear that these are sentient creatures with complex cultures and emotional responses. Whales grieve their dead, store memories for decades, and pass traditions down through generations. More than a few have speculated that whales may be the closest we get to communicating with an alien intelligence.
To that end, scientist David Gruber has been immersed in a remarkable undertaking: using A.I. technology to allow humans to talk to whales. By monitoring the clicks of sperm whales over the course of years, Gruber and his team hope to be able to train large language models (LLMs) on the data sets, effectively allowing us to have a conversation.
The more we know, the more heartbreaking it becomes to recognize the extent of the damage humans have done, both intentionally and not to these highly intelligent creatures. Although the majority of commercial whaling was banned in 1986, whales face another ongoing existential threat: noise pollution.
The Unseen Toll of Noise Pollution
The ocean that whales and other marine life evolved in was a far quieter space. Since the invention of SONAR around the turn of the 20th century, that has changed drastically. Much like a whale’s own echolocation system, SONAR blasts sound waves out as far as 300 miles, which bounce back and allow ships and submarines to navigate.
To accomplish that, SONAR operates at a level of about 235 decibels. For contrast, a concert by heavy-metal band Metallica that drew noise complaints was 126 decibels. Because whales have highly sensitive hearing organs, they’re even more susceptible to physical and psychological damage.
A 2022 found that cetaceans—the broader family that includes both whales and dolphins—reacted to SONAR with same kind of terror normally reserved for apex predators. In some cases, a direct blast of SONAR is enough to permenantly deafen whales—which all but amounts to a death sentence. Without their hearing, whales are unable to navigate or communicate with their pods, putting them at risk for ships, predators, and beaching.
As damaging as SONAR is, it’s far from the only culprit. At present, there are more than 100,000 commercial shipping vessels in active use, all of which contribute to the noise. As the global economy has grown, we’ve build both more and larger vessels to accommodate—so much so that the total carrying capacity quadrupled from 1996 to 2020. With the underwater roar of a large cargo carrier hovering around 190 decibels, that really adds up.
All that cacophony impacts whales in a variety of ways, some of which we are only beginning to understand. Researchers have found instances in which it stops whales from feeding or mating, or disturbs their migration patterns. And as with humans or other intelligent mammals, the sustained levels of heightened anxiety can take a serious toll over time.
Work to Be Done
Ultimately, much of the work that needs to be done to make our oceans a quieter, safer place again needs to be done at a policy level. To that end, there have been several highly positive developments. In 2024, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed on a new Action Plan in which member states will agree to stricter guidelines, in addition to funding more research and data collection.
The good news is that this is one space in which small changes could make a big difference when applied on scale. One analysis from the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) found that if the world’s ships could simply reduce speed by 10 percent, their decibel output would drop by 40 percent. Slowing down ships offers the added bonus of slashing their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 24 percent as well.
Shipping technology can also make a significant difference. Hanhwha Ocean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, one of the largest shipping companies in South Korea, has been investing in several different technologies that could reduce noise.
Air lubrication effectively blankets the ship’s hull in million of tiny air bubbles. This cuts down on friction, allowing the ship to glide comparatively smoothly—and quietly—throught the ocean. Air Injection, on the other hand creates a bubble curtain around the hull to block soundwaves.
A number of private tech startups have also jumped into the arena to try and help out. U.S.-based AdBm Technologies has raised more than US$2 million for technology engineered to reduce sounds under the sea.
Finally, researchers at the University of British Columbia and University of Glasglow have been looking into A.I.-powered solutions to tackle the problem. In a paper titled “Deep neural network for learning wave scattering and interference of underwater acoustics,” the researchwers lay how machine-learning could be used to predict just how far man-made soundwaves travel underwater.
The team trained a long short-term memory network on 30 simulated underwater environments, then asked it to make predictions about how soundwaves would behave in other underwater scenarios. The results were impressively accurate.
“Waiting seconds instead of days to produce models of underwater acoustic scattering would be a significant breakthroug,” said Dr. Wrik Mallik, of the University of Glasgow's James Watt School of Engineering in an interview with Phys.org. Having real-time feedback on devices which could be used out on the ocean would allow much more effective planning to help mitigate the effects of noise pollution on marine animals.”
Posted 31 Jul 2024
