title: Internal waves as a proposed mechanism for increasing ambient noise in an increasingly acidic ocean.
abstract: The effect on the ambient noise level in shallow water of the ocean growing more acidic is modeled. Because most noise sources are near the surface, high-order acoustic modes are preferentially excited. Linear internal waves, however, can scatter the noise into the low-order, low-loss modes most affected by the changes in acidity. The model uses transport theory to couple the modes and assumes an isotropic distribution for the noise sources. For a scenario typical of the East China Sea, the noise at 3 kHz is predicted to increase by 30%, about one decibel, as the pH decreases from 8.0 to 7.4.
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, 1013 NE 40th Street, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA. rouseff@apl.washington.edu
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rouseff
authors.forename: Dajun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tang