Monday 23 November 2009

Rethinking Light and Sound

The director of the Census for Marine Life - Jesse Ausubel - rethinks how illumination and noise are rippling through ecosystems.
In his invited essay for Seed Magazine, he notes:

"When their generation looked up at the night sky a century ago, they saw swathes of stars. Today, however, our most familiar starry image may be satellites and astronauts looking down, observing the lights on Earth at night ...

I wonder if some of the changes experts attribute to carbon dioxide and global warming may owe more to nocturnal photons and their associates"

"... humans are adding about three decibels more sound to the ocean each decade, roughly doubling the power of the added noise. Because sound spreads widely in the oceans, human clamor touches every corner. ...As I wonder about life in a darker night, I wonder about marine life in a quieter ocean."

Source:
http://seed2.com/54295

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