Comments on: Oceans are ‘Too Noisy’ for Whales http://www.sciscoop.com/2008-9-16-5425-03162.html Scooping up science news and dropping it on your desk Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:14:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: http://www.sciscoop.com/2008-9-16-5425-03162.html/comment-page-1#comment-2647 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:40:37 +0000 http://localhost/~arielschwartz/wordpress/sciscoop/?p=3113#comment-2647 And only today we hear that Polar bears are going deaf because of global warming<p> <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7640000/newsid_7644300/7644397.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7640000/newsid_7644300/7644397.stm</a><p> Sounds to me like someone needed to shoehorn climate change into their grant application... And only today we hear that Polar bears are going deaf because of global warming

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7640000/newsid_7644300/7644397.stm

Sounds to me like someone needed to shoehorn climate change into their grant application…

]]> By: barakn http://www.sciscoop.com/2008-9-16-5425-03162.html/comment-page-1#comment-1722 barakn Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:14:15 +0000 http://localhost/~arielschwartz/wordpress/sciscoop/?p=3113#comment-1722 The article mentions increased levels of noise caused by human activity. It's not just that we're noisy, it appears that increasing levels of CO2 are acidifying the ocean, and -- for reasons still not thoroughly understood -- the decreasing pH decreases the ability of the water to absorb sound. See the <a href="http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14794-acidifying-oceans-are-brewing-up-an-underwater-din.html">article</a> at NewScientist. Now theoretically this means that a whale's call should be able to travel farther, counter-acting the first article's assertion that "the effective range of blue whales' calls is only about one-tenth of what it was before the era of engine-driven commercial shipping." I suppose this depends on if there are areas of blue whale territory that are not affected by commercial shipping. The article mentions increased levels of noise caused by human activity. It’s not just that we’re noisy, it appears that increasing levels of CO2 are acidifying the ocean, and — for reasons still not thoroughly understood — the decreasing pH decreases the ability of the water to absorb sound. See the article at NewScientist. Now theoretically this means that a whale’s call should be able to travel farther, counter-acting the first article’s assertion that “the effective range of blue whales’ calls is only about one-tenth of what it was before the era of engine-driven commercial shipping.” I suppose this depends on if there are areas of blue whale territory that are not affected by commercial shipping.

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