In the Navy’s latest environmental impact statement draft, they admit that the sonar exercises planned for 2014-2018 may unintentionally “harm marine mammals 2.8 million times over five years.” This estimate is up about 150,000 instances a year from their EIS statement of 2009-2013. Included in this estimate are two million incidents of “temporary hearing loss,” and 2,000 are targeted for permanent hearing loss.
So is that how it went? How have things gone in the ten years since this article was written?
There are no noise-cancelling headphones to stop the U.S. Navy’s 235-decibel pressure waves of unbearable pinging and metallic shrieking. At 200 Db, the vibrations can rupture your lungs, and above 210 Db, the lethal noise can bore straight through your brain until it hemorrhages that delicate tissue. If you’re not deaf after this devastating sonar blast, you’re dead.
Fun fact, sperm whales can generate a sonar click at 230dB. Decibels are a logarithmic scale so increasing by only a few dB is basically double the volume.
A sperm whale may swim past you, think you’re interesting and give a little click to scan you, and basically stun or kill you instantly.
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