Sound at sea

1995/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ozeanografia

Researchers at the La Jolla research center in California say the temperature of the oceans continues to rise. They believe that if they demonstrated that sound propagates faster than normal at sea, the theory of warming would be accepted, as it is the demonstration of this theory. Although last year a request was made for the experiment that will measure the diffusion of sound, Californian institutions have had to palliate the anger of environmental groups before accepting the request of the researchers, since the new intention has caused a great scandal.

Researchers want to show that there is a direct relationship between sea temperature and sound propagation: the higher the temperature, the faster the sound expands. To do this they want to throw at sea six pumps of 195 decibels during the same week, in order to analyze at different times the propagation of this sound.

In the opinion of environmental groups, the sound propagation of these bombs devours animals that use sound communication. The case of dolphins is especially worrying for environmental groups, since around the research center there is a lot of dolphin and they believe that the experiment can totally damage the hearing of these animals.