Numlock Sunday: Amorina Kingdon on the phenomenon of underwater sound

Photo by Marek Okon on Unsplash

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to Amorina Kingdon, writer for Hakai Magazine and author of the new book Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water. Here's what I wrote about her article, “Quieting the Global Growl”:

The vocalizations made by baby beluga whales come in at 120 decibels, 22 decibels below the calls of older belugas. That difference has a significant impact on how those newborns can be heard, with newborn calls reaching only 350 meters away, compared to the 6.5-kilometer range for adult belugas. That’s a problem given how loud the oceans are getting thanks to human activity: In 1980, the merchant shipping fleet was 700,000 ships, which today stands at 2 million.

We spoke about how sound works underwater, how it affects and is used by aquatic life, and where we stand on regulating underwater noise pollution.

Kingdon can be found at her website or on Twitter.

This interview has been condensed and ed…