{"id":29675,"date":"2026-07-25T15:55:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T19:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/?p=29675"},"modified":"2026-07-20T09:08:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:08:59","slug":"scientists-microphone-a-floating-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/scientists-microphone-a-floating-wind\/29675\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists lowered a microphone beneath a floating wind farm and captured a sperm whale using powerful clicks as its own underwater \u2018radar\u2019 to hunt for prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deep ocean is changing as we install clean energy structures in waters where industry has never reached before<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Offshore platforms are reaching increasingly more remote regions of the planet in search of the ideal winds. The intense spinning motion of the blades goes beyond air movement. It introduces a sound element to the marine environment.<\/p>\n

Researchers recently deployed sensitive underwater recording equipment under turbines<\/strong>. How are the largest animals on Earth responding to the sound of green energy?<\/p>\n

How marine giants are meeting industrial clean power giants<\/h2>\n

The Hywind Tampen wind farm sits 87 miles off the Norwegian coast and incorporates 11 huge floating turbines in the North Sea. It is the largest floating installation in the world.<\/p>\n

The turbines are not anchored into the seabed directly. They are tethered by steel cables to anchors in the seabed thousands of feet below<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

This is the frontier of renewable power, operating in the most turbulent conditions. These systems are relatively new in the clean energy mix, and scientists want to understand their footprint on the environment. Cutting-edge tetrahedral hydrophone arrays were installed on the ocean floor under the turbine platforms. The goal was mapping the profile of the sound moving through the immediate water. <\/p>\n

The recorders went to work gathering hundreds of hours of deep-sea audio. Unexpectedly, the team picked up a series of powerful acoustic signals cutting through the hum<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The ocean has been industrialized, and whales have heard about it<\/h2>\n

Marine mammals that have to navigate deep waters rely on sound for more than information; it is survival. Sperm whales have to dive thousands of feet into pitch-black darkness where sunlight will never reach.<\/p>\n

They still have to locate their prey in the darkness, and they use biosonar to do it<\/strong>. The whales emit strong, rhythmic clicks that bounce off objects, and their brains are able to map surroundings with precision. <\/p>\n

The noise generated by human activities like offshore construction and shipping has had conservationists concerned since the advent of wind farms decades ago. They worry that hunting activities will be disrupted, which may lead to starvation, or at least the abandonment of rich, traditional feeding grounds.<\/p>\n

If the sound of wind turbines spinning becomes too loud, the whales, and other ocean species that rely on sound to survive<\/a>, maybe become theoretically ‘blinded.’<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The Hywind Tampen recordings taken during a 40-knot gale delivered an opportunity to check on potential conflict in the ecosystem. <\/p>\n

Proof of coexistence with green energy in the deep blue<\/h2>\n

The hydrophone data showed that sperm whales were happily hunting in the wind farm’s acoustic footprint even when underwater noise levels were highest. The mammals were unaffected. <\/p>\n

The audio files revealed the unmistakeable echolocation clicks of sperm whales hunting<\/strong>, called creaks. It is the radar that whales use to locate fish and squid. The successful coexistence is encouraging, but why is the sound of the turbines not drowning out the radar?<\/p>\n

There is no overlap, according to the data<\/h3>\n

It comes down to a difference in frequencies, says the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory<\/a>. The turbine noise is low-frequency, around 25 ad 75 hertz. It manifests as low-frequency, dull, humming vibrations. <\/p>\n

Biosonar whale clicks are different<\/a>. They are a higher frequency at between 10,000 and 30,000 hertz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The channels do not even come close to overlapping. It means that the sensory effect we imagined turbine noise would have on whale behavior is much lower than expected. <\/p>\n

It is looking promising for the future of marine conservation and green energy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If you want to learn more about how marine mammals navigate changing ocean environments, read about how underwater noise pollution impacts migratory pathways<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To learn more about this discovery, you can check the full study here: Kriesell, H.J., Aniceto, A.S., Burns, R.D.J., Murvoll, K.M., Weissenberger, J., Welch, S.J. (2026). Sound Source Characterization for the World\u2019s Largest Floating Offshore Wind Farm Hywind Tampen. In: Popper<\/em>, A.N., Sisneros, J.A., Lepper, P.A., Vigness-Raposa, K.J. (eds) The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life IV. Springer, Cham. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-031-94229-7_79-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The deep ocean is changing as we install clean energy structures in waters where industry has never reached before. Offshore platforms are reaching increasingly more remote regions of the planet in search of the ideal winds. The intense spinning motion of the blades goes beyond air movement. It introduces a sound element to the marine … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":29718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"wind","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Scientists lowered a microphone beneath a floating wind farm and captured a sperm whale using powerful clicks as its own underwater \u2018radar\u2019 to hunt for prey.","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}