Underwater Soundscapes
September 23, 2013
Microphone arrays around the North Pacific allow scientists to listen to the diversity of life under the sea.
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Transcript
BOB HIRSHON (host):
Listening to the ocean. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Simone Baumann-Pickering lowers a microphone array into the Pacific Ocean. (Susanne Bard)
Aboard a research vessel, Scripps Institution of Oceanography biologist Simone Baumann-Pickering and her team lower an array of microphones into the Pacific Ocean. Then, they listen to the diversity of ocean life.
(SFX: Pogo fish/ocean forest)
HIRSHON:
Recording ocean sounds allows scientists to characterize the species living in different parts of the ocean and to monitor ocean health. In addition to actively listening, Baumann-Pickering says they’ve also set up passive acoustic monitoring stations up and down the North Pacific.
SIMONE BAUMANN-PICKERING (Scripps Institution of Oceanography):
The strength of these long-term acoustic recordings is we’re getting the full breadth of anything that produces a sound, so each ecosystem is going to have its own soundscape, and you’re going to be able to put together all the different puzzle pieces of that soundscape.
HIRSHON:
I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
