Ocean sound levels in the northeast Pacific recorded from an autonomous underwater glider

Details

• Journal Title:
  PLOS ONE
• Personal Author:
  Haxel, Joseph H. ; Matsumoto, Haru ; Meinig, Christian ; Kalbach, Gabriella ; Lau, T.-K. ; Dziak, Robert P. ; Stalin, Scott
• NOAA Program & Office:
  CIMRS (Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies) ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory)
• Description:
  Ocean gliders are a quiet and efficient mobile autonomous platform for passive acoustic monitoring and oceanographic measurements in remote marine environments. During July 20—August 6 2012, we used a Teledyne Webb Research Slocum G2 glider equipped with a hydrophone logging system to record ocean sound along a 458 km north to south traverse of the outer continental shelf break along the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast. Glider derived recordings yielded a unique perspective on the variation of ambient sound with depth, where natural wind generated surface processes were identified as a dominant acoustic contributor to spectral levels in the region. Near and far-field vessel radiated noise were also found to add significant energy to ambient conditions. Spatially distributed measurements of ambient sound levels recorded from the glider were consistent with long-term spectral estimates from fixed station, deep ocean hydrophone array measurements during the 1990–2000’s in the region. Ocean sound level measurements captured by a mobile glider are shown to be an effective and valuable asset for describing ocean surface wind conditions and characterizing spatial and temporal changes in the underwater acoustic environment over a broad regional scale.
• Keywords:
  Ocean sounds
• Source:
  PLOS ONE, 14(11)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225325
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7c4c5c9e7826e7260511b1a70aefdefc3ac2a8e2c01b9cc791cc231cbda7150838111dfe16757763ea1a5ac2fa34c34e981facef37eb2e2273449376e6b29361
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/25744/noaa_25744_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 5.48 MB ]