Underwater noise levels in UK waters

Underwater noise from human activities appears to be rising, with ramifications for acoustically sensitive marine organisms and the functioning of marine ecosystems. Policymakers are beginning to address the risk of ecological impact, but are constrained by a lack of data on current and historic noise levels. Here, we present the first nationally coordinated effort to quantify underwater noise levels, in support of UK policy objectives under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Field measurements were made during 2013-2014 at twelve sites around the UK. Median noise levels ranged from 81.5-95.5 dB re 1 μPa for one-third octave bands from 63-500 Hz. Noise exposure varied considerably, with little anthropogenic influence at the Celtic Sea site, to several North Sea sites with persistent vessel noise. Comparison of acoustic metrics found that the RMS level (conventionally used to represent the mean) was highly skewed by outliers, exceeding the 97 th percentile at some frequencies. We conclude that environmental indicators of anthropogenic noise should instead use percentiles, to ensure statistical robustness. Power analysis indicated that at least three decades of continuous monitoring would be required to detect trends of similar magnitude to historic rises in noise levels observed in the Northeast Pacific

Limits in detecting acceleration of ice sheet mass loss due to climate variability

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been reported to be losing mass at accelerating rates1, 2. If sustained, this accelerating mass loss will result in a global mean sea-level rise by the year 2100 that is approximately 43 cm greater than if a linear trend is assumed2. However, at present there is no scientific consensus on whether these reported accelerations result from variability inherent to the ice-sheet–climate system, or reflect long-term changes and thus permit extrapolation to the future3. Here we compare mass loss trends and accelerations in satellite data collected between January 2003 and September 2012 from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment to long-term mass balance time series from a regional surface mass balance model forced by re-analysis data. We find that the record length of spaceborne gravity observations is too short at present to meaningfully separate long-term accelerations from short-term ice sheet variability. We also find that the detection threshold of mass loss acceleration depends on record length: to detect an acceleration at an accuracy within ±10 Gt yr−2, a period of 10 years or more of observations is required for Antarctica and about 20 years for Greenland. Therefore, climate variability adds uncertainty to extrapolations of future mass loss and sea-level rise, underscoring the need for continuous long-term satellite monitoring