• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns March 20, 2023
Swift Action, Inclusive Resilience Vital in Face of Overlapping Climate Hazards March 20, 2023
Shift from Fossils to Renewables is Quickest, Cheapest Path to Cut Emissions, IPCC Report Shows March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Whales assist in-depth ocean research

January 3, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Smart tags attached to whales are providing valuable data from the ocean depths on crucial impacts related to climate change.

LONDON, 3 January, 2017 – Sperm whales – those deep-diving, world-travelling giants of the ocean – have been called into service as research assistants to answer questions about climate change.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

In the course of their in-depth research, they will also answer questions about basic oceanography and about cetacean behaviour.

And while researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) in the US confirm a painless, harmless and cost-effective way to exact detailed and otherwise-impossible scientific data from the once-threatened sperm, fin and blue whales, a physicist at the University of Washington has quietly proposed a new way of exploring ocean conditions without putting marine mammals at risk from sonar blasts.

Oceans play a decisive role in the management of the planetary climate. To explore that role, researchers need to know about surface and subsurface temperature, ocean chemistry, salinity and current flow in a vast body of water kilometres deep and covering 70% of the planet.

Expensive science

But oceanography is an expensive science, and there is a limit to what researchers can do with research ships, submersibles, satellite observation and robotic buoys such as the Argo oceanographic instruments.

For decades, scientists exploited the fact that sound travels faster in warmer water, and used sonar blasts to create acoustic profiles. But whales themselves communicate and navigate by sonar techniques, and the technique was abandoned in 2006 as a result of increasing concern about the impact of noise on the great creatures of the sea.

Some whale species, though, may be vulnerable to climate change. And in any case, whales are beginning to help climate scientists − directly or indirectly − take the measure of global change.

Whales are the fellow-mammals that know the ocean most intimately. And now they have begun to share that intimacy.

The OSU researchers report in Ecology and Evolution journal that a new kind of smart tag attached to a whale’s skin can record water depth, whale movement, body orientation, water temperature and light levels, and go on doing so for up to seven weeks at a time.

“This technology has even made whales our partners in acquiring data to better understand ocean conditions and climate change”

Then the tag detaches, floats to the surface, flashes its light-emitting diodes and transmits GPS quality location data, and bobs around until scientists can collect it.

Along with delivering oceanographic information in the kind of detail never before possible, the tag also maintains a record of the whale’s ups and downs. One recovered tag recorded more than 2,900 dives, and all of them delivered data about the water temperatures to depths of 1,600 metres.

“This provides us with a broad picture of whale behaviour and ecology that we’ve never had before,” says study leader Bruce Mate, a professor at the OSU Marine Mammal Institute. “This technology has even made whales our partners in acquiring data to better understand ocean conditions and climate change.

“It gives us vast amounts of new data about water temperatures through space and time, over large distances, and in remote locations. We’re learning more about whales, and the whales are helping us to learn more about our own planet.”

Zhongxiang Zhao, an oceanographer at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, reports in Geophysical Research Letters that he has devised a cheap way to monitor temperature through the ocean depths, using a technique in which no whales could be harmed.

Internal tidal waves are generated when currents, driven by the tide, pass over submarine ridges. Secondary waves – with wavelengths of 160 kilometres and speeds of 3 or 4 metres a second – make a telltale signature at the surface.

Climate change is warming the upper ocean more quickly than the waters at depth, and temperature affects the speed of internal tidal waves.

Internal waves

So, Dr Zhao says, the internal waves would leave their signature in tiny changes of height at the surface that could be recorded in satellite data.

An internal wave within the subsurface ocean could have a height change of 20 to 50 metres. This would be reflected in a surface height change of two centimetres. Careful reading of surface data variations could reveal changes in ocean temperature.

Analysis of two decades of ocean data has revealed a 1% increase in speed time along two tracks of the Atlantic Ocean. Importantly, Dr Zhao’s readings match data recorded by Argo buoys used by oceanographers.

He sees the approach as cheap, sustainable and harmless to whales, providing a tomography scan of the planet that offers a measure of ocean circulation.

“The internal tidal wave is a naturally occurring ocean phenomenon, so monitoring its long-term variability is very cheap,” Dr Zhao says.

“If you are a doctor, you are scanning the health of your patient. I am like a doctor scanning the Earth, and who can see if it is getting a temperature. This method offers a long-term, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly technique for monitoring global ocean warming.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
28
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
48
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
206
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
451
Kenuoene/pixabay

Shift from Fossils to Renewables is Quickest, Cheapest Path to Cut Emissions, IPCC Report Shows

March 20, 2023
154
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
741
Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine/Wikimedia Commons

IPCC Report Charts a Course for Ottawa’s ‘Clean Technology’ Budget

March 21, 2023
106
U.S. National Park Service/rawpixel

Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns

March 20, 2023
65

Recent Posts

FMSC/Flickr

Swift Action, Inclusive Resilience Vital in Face of Overlapping Climate Hazards

March 20, 2023
59
Kiara Worth, UNClimateChange/flickr

Gap Between IPCC’s Science, National Actions Sets Challenge for COP 28

March 21, 2023
60
Photo by IISD/ENB

IPCC Sees Deeper Risk in Overshooting 1.5°C Warming Threshold

March 20, 2023
39
EcoFlight

Historic Deal Reopens B.C. Indigenous Territory to Fracking, Promises Land Restoration

March 19, 2023
439
Wikimedia Commons/Humans of Vanuatu

Six Countries Call for Fossil-Free Pacific

March 19, 2023
47
Wikipedia

Fossil Funding Makes Indigenous Resource Network a ‘Propaganda Machine’, Opponent Says

March 19, 2023
76
Next Post
Julien Harneis/Flickr

A ‘First Step’ to Cleaning Up Clean Energy’s Dirty Back Story

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}