scholarly journals Monitoring Greek Seas Using Passive Underwater Acoustics

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Nystuen ◽  
Marios N. Anagnostou ◽  
Emmanouil N. Anagnostou ◽  
Anastasios Papadopoulos

AbstractThe Hellenic Center for Marine Research POSEIDON ocean monitoring and forecasting system has included passive underwater acoustic measurements as part of its real-time operations. Specifically, low-duty-cycle long-term passive acoustic listeners (PALs) are deployed on two operational buoys, one off Pylos in the Ionian Sea and the second off Athos in the northern Aegean Sea. The first step toward the quantitative use of passive ambient sound is the classification of the geophysical sources—for example, wind speed and rain rate—from the noise of shipping, from other anthropogenic activities, and from the natural sounds of marine animals. After classification, quantitative measurements of wind speed and precipitation are applied to the ambient sound data. Comparisons of acoustic quantitative measurements of wind speed with in situ buoy anemometer measurements were shown to be within 0.5 m s−1. The rainfall detection and quantification was also confirmed with collocated measurements of precipitation from a nearby coastal rain gauge and operational weather radar rainfall observations. The complicated condition of high sea states, including the influence of ambient bubble clouds, rain, and sea spray under high winds, was sorted acoustically, and shows promise for identifying and quantifying such conditions from underwater sound measurements. Long-term data were used in this study to derive sound budgets showing the percent occurrence of dominant sound sources (ships, marine mammals, wind, and rain), their relative intensity as a function of frequency, and statistical summaries of the retrieved rainfall amounts and wind speeds at the two buoy locations in the Aegean and Ionian Seas.

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 438-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Halliday ◽  
Matthew K. Pine ◽  
Stephen J. Insley

Underwater noise is an important issue globally. Underwater noise can cause auditory masking, behavioural disturbance, hearing damage, and even death for marine animals. While underwater noise levels have been increasing in nonpolar regions, noise levels are thought to be much lower in the Arctic where the presence of sea ice limits anthropogenic activities. However, climate change is causing sea ice to decrease, which is allowing for increased access for noisy anthropogenic activities. Underwater noise may have more severe impacts in the Arctic compared with nonpolar regions due to a combination of lower ambient sound levels and increased sensitivity of Arctic marine animals to underwater noise. Here, we review ambient sound levels in the Arctic, as well as the reactions of Arctic and sub-Arctic marine mammals to underwater noise. We then relate what is known about underwater noise in the Arctic to policies and management solutions for underwater noise and discuss whether Arctic-specific policies are necessary.


Author(s):  
A. D. Chalfoun

Abstract Purpose of Review Anthropogenic activities can lead to the loss, fragmentation, and alteration of wildlife habitats. I reviewed the recent literature (2014–2019) focused on the responses of avian, mammalian, and herpetofaunal species to oil and natural gas development, a widespread and still-expanding land use worldwide. My primary goals were to identify any generalities in species’ responses to development and summarize remaining gaps in knowledge. To do so, I evaluated the directionality of a wide variety of responses in relation to taxon, location, development type, development metric, habitat type, and spatiotemporal aspects. Recent Findings Studies (n = 70) were restricted to the USA and Canada, and taxonomically biased towards birds and mammals. Longer studies, but not those incorporating multiple spatial scales, were more likely to detect significant responses. Negative responses of all types were present in relatively low frequencies across all taxa, locations, development types, and development metrics but were context-dependent. The directionality of responses by the same species often varied across studies or development metrics. Summary The state of knowledge about wildlife responses to oil and natural gas development has developed considerably, though many biases and gaps remain. Studies outside of North America and that focus on herpetofauna are lacking. Tests of mechanistic hypotheses for effects, long-term studies, assessment of response thresholds, and experimental designs that isolate the effects of different stimuli associated with development, remain critical. Moreover, tests of the efficacy of habitat mitigation efforts have been rare. Finally, investigations of the demographic effects of development across the full annual cycle were absent for non-game species and are critical for the estimation of population-level effects.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 505
Author(s):  
Yonglan Tang ◽  
Guirong Xu ◽  
Rong Wan ◽  
Xiaofang Wang ◽  
Junchao Wang ◽  
...  

It is an important to study atmospheric thermal and dynamic vertical structures over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and their impact on precipitation by using long-term observation at representative stations. This study exhibits the observational facts of summer precipitation variation on subdiurnal scale and its atmospheric thermal and dynamic vertical structures over the TP with hourly precipitation and intensive soundings in Jiulong during 2013–2020. It is found that precipitation amount and frequency are low in the daytime and high in the nighttime, and hourly precipitation greater than 1 mm mostly occurs at nighttime. Weak precipitation during the daytime may be caused by air advection, and strong precipitation at nighttime may be closely related with air convection. Both humidity and wind speed profiles show obvious fluctuation when precipitation occurs, and the greater the precipitation intensity, the larger the fluctuation. Moreover, the fluctuation of wind speed is small in the morning, large at noon and largest at night, presenting a similar diurnal cycle to that of convective activity over the TP, which is conductive to nighttime precipitation. Additionally, the inverse layer is accompanied by the inverse humidity layer, and wind speed presents multi-peaks distribution in its vertical structure. Both of these are closely related with the underlying surface and topography of Jiulong. More studies on physical mechanism and numerical simulation are necessary for better understanding the atmospheric phenomenon over the TP.


2012 ◽  
Vol 512-515 ◽  
pp. 803-808
Author(s):  
Ji Long Tong ◽  
Zeng Bao Zhao ◽  
Wen Yu Zhang

This paper presents a new strategy in wind speed prediction based on AR model and wavelet transform.The model uses the adjacent data for short-term wind speed forecasting and the data of the same moment in earlier days for long-term wind speed prediction at that moment,taking the similarity of wind speed at the same moment every day into account.Using the new model to analyze the wind speed of An-xi,China in April,2010,this paper concludes that the model is effective for that the correlation coefficient between the predicted value and the original data is larger than 0.8 when the prediction is less than 48 hours;while the prediction time is long ahead (48-120h),the error is acceptable (within 40%),which demonstrates that the new method is a novel and good idea for prediction on wind speed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 605-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Mayor Salgado ◽  
R.N. Farrugia ◽  
C. Galdies ◽  
T. Sant

2009 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jemma Finch ◽  
Melanie J. Leng ◽  
Rob Marchant

AbstractLate Quaternary vegetation history and environmental changes in a biodiverse tropical ecosystem are inferred from pollen, charcoal and carbon isotope evidence derived from a ∼ 48,000-yr sedimentary record from the Uluguru Mountains, a component of the Eastern Arc Mountains of Kenya and Tanzania. Results indicate that Eastern Arc forest composition has remained relatively stable during the past ∼ 48,000 yr. Long-term environmental stability of the Eastern Arc forests has been proposed as a mechanism for the accumulation and persistence of species during glacial periods, thus resulting in the diverse forests observed today. The pollen and isotope data presented here indicate some marked changes in abundance but no significant loss in moist forest taxa through the last glacial maximum, thereby providing support for the long-term environmental stability of the Eastern Arc. Anthropogenic activities, including burning and forest clearance, were found to play a moderate role in shaping the mosaic of forest patches and high-altitude grasslands that characterise the site today; however, this influence was tempered by the inaccessibility of the mountain.


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