The Oceans Are Vibrating With Humanity's 'Background Hum'

There are fewer and fewer places nowadays where one can escape the sound of humans. These sanctuaries of precious quiet do not include much of the ocean, which is constantly thrumming with civilization's noise pollution.

The bulk of human-generated audio in the seas comes from large shipping vessels, according to a NOAA working group on marine noise. For a while now the U.S. government and other concerned groups have investigated the possibly harmful impact underwater noise might have on marine life – especially cetaceans like whales and dolphins that use sound to communicate. Thanks to one of the parties involved in that effort, we now can visualize how our massive seafaring machines are creating raucous house parties in the northern Pacific and Atlantic, in a cluster around Europe, in busy Middle Eastern shipping routes and many other regions of intense clamor.