2022 SOST Opportunities and Actions Roundtable
Summary: Increasing industrialization of the oceans drastically changes soundscapes, while climate change also alters sound sources and transmission, in turn affecting animal behavior, itself a source of ocean sound as well as an indicator of ocean health. Now is the time to initiate long time-series of ocean soundscapes to contribute to a climate-ready nation, a sustainable blue economy, and coastal resilience. Advances in low-cost hydrophones and signal processing offer fresh possibilities for monitoring ocean soundscapes with passive acoustics. The development of the passive acoustic systems would also have value for national security as instructive surrogates to understand “wiring” of coastal areas of possible adversaries. Topics within a national initiative should include technical specifications, calibration, platforms such as drones, sensors and digital hardware, software development, and growth of the acoustic library of reference sounds. The US could promptly start pilot projects to help perfect installation architectures, test passive sensors, discover maintenance needs, explore data recovery, etc. Pilots might begin in areas of robust classic ocean observation.
Sector: Academia
Organization: Rockefeller University
POC: Jesse Ausubel, ausubel@rockefeller.edu