Climate Change Has Produced a New Underwater Sound Superhighway - Facts So Romantic
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In March, a team of scientists dragged a blast furnace on a sled across a giant slab of ice in the Beaufort Sea, above the Arctic Circle. With the furnace, the researchers (from the United States Navy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) melted a hole in the ice big enough to fit their 850-pound, 12-foot drone, which they dropped through to the icy waters below. Their mission: to measure how climate change is altering the acoustics of the Arctic Ocean. The USS Providence in the Arctic Ocean.Marion Doss / FlickrUnderstanding how sound travels under water is critical to the Navy because its submarines use sonar to communicate, and to track and identify foreign vessels. The speed of sound is variable in water, changing with temperature, salinity, and pressure. As temperature (...)