Arctic Anthropogenic Sound Contributions from Seismic Surveys during Summer 2013

Mike Van Der Schaar,Jürgen Weissenberger,Anja J Haugerud,Steffen De Vreese,Michel André

doi:10.3389/fmars.2017.00175

Mike Van Der Schaar, Jürgen Weissenberger + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00175

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Abstract

Statoil deployed three acoustic recorders from fall 2013 to fall 2014 in the Arctic region as part of a broad scientific campaign. One recorder was installed in the Barentsz Sea south-east of Spitsbergen. Two other recorders were installed in the Greenland Sea north-east of Greenland. All recorders were operating at a duty cycle of 2 minutes on and 30 minutes off, sampling at 39062 Hz and recording in 24 bits. The Greenland recorders both captured air gun surveys performed during the summer months of 2013, allowing to estimate the transmission loss in the Arctic over long ranges. This paper presents log(R) transmission loss curves for these scenarios that can help assessing the acoustic shipping impact for future expeditions.

Highlights

With the opening of shipping routes and improved economic availability of the arctic the anthropogenic activities have been increasing over the last few years in that area (Stephenson et al, 2011)
In the European Union, this concern about sound pollution has resulted in a special section in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive where sound levels have to be monitored and high intensity sounds have to be cataloged (European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, 2008)
It is likely that similar requirements will become the norm for operations outside of EU coastal waters such as the arctic zone which has a rich marine mammal diversity

Summary

Introduction

With the opening of shipping routes and improved economic availability of the arctic the anthropogenic activities have been increasing over the last few years in that area (Stephenson et al, 2011). Sound pollution has become an important issue where there is concern about how sound may affect marine mammals (Southall et al, 2007) and concerning its affect on fish (Casper et al, 2013), cephalopods (André et al, 2011), and other organisms (Solé et al, 2016). These affects can lead in extreme cases to direct harm of an animal or more often to masking of acoustic signals reducing communication of forraging ranges (Jensen et al, 2009). In many cases source sound levels related to these activities may be available, but the sound propagation ranges, and the sphere of influence, is often decided using modeling techniques (Sigray et al, 2016)

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