Underwater sound levels in the Canadian Arctic, 2014-2019

William D Halliday; David Barclay; Amanda N Barkley; Emmanuelle Cook; Jackie Dawson; R Casey Hilliard; Nigel E Hussey; Joshua M Jones; Francis Juanes; Marianne Marcoux; Andrea Niemi; Shannon Nudds; Matthew K Pine; Clark Richards; Kevin Scharffenberg; Kristin Westdal; Stephen J Insley

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112437

Underwater sound levels in the Canadian Arctic, 2014-2019

Mar Pollut Bull. 2021 Jul:168:112437. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112437. Epub 2021 May 3.

Authors

William D Halliday¹, David Barclay², Amanda N Barkley³, Emmanuelle Cook², Jackie Dawson⁴, R Casey Hilliard⁵, Nigel E Hussey³, Joshua M Jones⁶, Francis Juanes⁷, Marianne Marcoux⁸, Andrea Niemi⁸, Shannon Nudds⁹, Matthew K Pine¹⁰, Clark Richards⁹, Kevin Scharffenberg⁸, Kristin Westdal¹¹, Stephen J Insley¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Electronic address: whalliday@wcs.org.
² Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
³ Department of Integrative Biology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Institute for Big Data Analytics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
⁶ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
⁸ Freshwater Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
⁹ Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.
¹⁰ Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
¹¹ Oceans North, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

PMID: 33957495
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112437

Abstract

The Arctic has been a refuge from anthropogenic underwater noise; however, climate change has caused summer sea ice to diminish, allowing for unprecedented access and the potential for increased underwater noise. Baseline underwater sound levels must be quantified to monitor future changes and manage underwater noise in the Arctic. We analyzed 39 passive acoustic datasets collected throughout the Canadian Arctic from 2014 to 2019 using statistical models to examine spatial and temporal trends in daily mean sound pressure levels (SPL) and quantify environmental and anthropogenic drivers of SPL. SPL (50-1000 Hz) ranged from 70 to 127 dB re 1 μPa (median = 91 dB). SPL increased as wind speed increased, but decreased as both ice concentration and air temperature increased, and SPL increased as the number of ships per day increased. This study provides a baseline for underwater sound levels in the Canadian Arctic and fills many geographic gaps on published underwater sound levels.

Keywords: Ambient sound levels; Climate change; Passive acoustic monitoring; Ship traffic; Soundscape; Underwater noise.

MeSH terms

Acoustics*
Arctic Regions
Canada
Noise
Sound Spectrography
Sound*