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We've all heard about the problems that military sonar causes for whales and dolphins.
But the noises that humans make in the oceans aren't limited to sonar, and the effects aren't limited to marine mammals—though we're only beginning to understand the full impact on even them, which some believe has been underestimated until recently.
Here's a look at what are probably the five loudest and harmful sources of anthropogenic noise pollution in our oceans, and what those noises are doing to the animals that live there.
Large ships
Image: Brand X Pictures/Thinkstock
Noise caused by ships interferes with whales' normal feeding, mating, and migration patterns. In some species, the strain of making louder sounds takes an entirely different toll on whales' health by diverting energy from other life processes, which poses an extra danger when finding food is already becoming increasingly difficult due to dwindling fish populations.
World transportation
Image: Hemera/Thinkstock
The effects from noisy vessels come from large passenger ships, like cruise ships (or even smaller boats), as well as from freight shipping. With 1.2 million vessels making up a motorized fleet that carries out about 80 percent of global freight transport, the effect is tremendous, and it's not just on whales: the ability of fish to communicate about territory, food, or mating is impacted, as is even the place that young fish choose to call home. TreeHugger quotes marine researcher Steve Simpson: "If fish accidentally learn to follow the wrong sounds, they could end up stuck next to a construction site or follow a ship back out to sea."
Ocean tubes
Image: artpartner-images/Getty Images
One geoengineering scheme being developed to help mitigate climate change is basically a network of ocean tubes—as TreeHugger explains, "that would pump up deep, nutrient-rich water to stimulate algae blooms in the surface waters, thus helping draw down more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere." But with those pumps would come noise, as TreeHugger also reports: "Other emerging threats include those from iron and urea fertilization; other geoengineering schemes, for example to include pumps to bring colder and deeper waters to the surface, noise which can disrupt marine mammal cycles and may also effect fish behavior disrupting vibration patterns in the water column."
Offshore Drilling
Image: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
We've written at Planet Green about the effect that underwater drilling and other noises beyond large ships can have on fish: Atlantic herring, cod and bluefin tuna, for example—in an attempt to escape these sounds—school less cohesively, which could interrupt normal distribution patterns of fish as they try to avoid areas where these noises are a problem.
Military sonar
Image: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sunday Williams/Released
Whether or not military sonar is killing whales is not up for debate, it is just a question of how it actually happens. A recent film, Sounds of the Sea, highlighted on TreeHugger, explores "the way in which sonar impacts whales' bodies, how it causes internal bleeding, deaths, and strandings, and why the general public isn't getting the information that would change the way we look at military sonar use in the oceans."
More about ocean noise pollution:
Noise Pollution Harms Fish Populations, Locations, Habits
Imagine A World Without Fish - No More Shrimp On The Barbie: With Ocean Acidification
Another Problem with Offshore Drilling? It's Loud, and Harmful to Fish
