I realized that if I was going to contribute to the regulatory discussion about ocean noise impacts, that scientists, regulators, the Navy, conservationists, and industry would need to be drinking out of the same tap
I “laid an egg” (intentionally) by stating that 40% of the ships at sea are transporting fossil fuel, so the most direct way of accomplishing the stated goal would be to use less fossil fuel.
One of the virtues of OCEANOISE is that while it includes many academics, it also includes people in ocean policy, marine conservation, and ocean industries. So a lot of work gets done – not just through the presentations, key notes, and poster sessions, but also through the long lunches and social events that orbit around the many discussions stimulated by the programming.
We’ve arrived at an odd inflection point that has arisen now that National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is on the DOGE chopping block.
Standard metrics and vocabulary assures us that scientific and technical research is clearly understood, and repeatable. But it also can confer commercial advantages if the “Standard” conforms to already-developed, proprietary technologies.
I realized that if we were going to come up with clear regulatory guidelines (why we did this exercise), we would all need to be fishing in the same metrics pond.
Under the auspices of the International Standards Organization (ISO), we’re working on the “Underwater Internet of Things” (UIoT). Our task is to make sure that it wreaks the least amount of havoc on marine life.
Proposed “updates” of federal documents are required every five years to make sure the regulations reflect the ‘best available science.’ Predictably the 2024 “Updates” remain at least a decade behind the “best available science…”
I’ve just returned from attending OceanNoise2023 – a tri-annual conference on marine bioacoustics – this one in Vilanova i la Geltrú, just 30 km down the coast from Barcelona, Spain. OceaNoise is one of the bi/triennial conferences that coagulate the…
Most underwater communication signals will likely be acoustic, and likely be in the 8kHz – 25kHz range; overlapping human auditory range, and smack-dab in the sweet spot of marine mammal hearing range (as well as some fishes, and likely some marine invertebrates…).