SOSUS: During the forty years of the Cold War, the US set up an extensive global submarine study. Hydrophones were mounted and monitored and modified and moved and multiplied until we could be fairly confident what the Soviets were up to. After spending billions of dollars setting SOSUS up, now we don't need it any more. The Navy, which mans the equipment, must justify it or mothball it.

In 1971 whale scientists Roger Payne and Douglas Webb calculated that low-pitched (20-hertz) 155 decibel whale blasts could get trapped in the deep cooler layers of the ocean. The sounds made by fin and blue whales are the lowest and loudest of any animal. The Navy's slow-moving graphs showed fin whales' one second moans as "blips" that were repeated several times a minute. Blue whales make sounds that last up to 30-seconds, and sweep up or down in pitch.

At first these sounds on the SOSUS hydrophones were blamed on amplifier malfunction, then on geomagnetic anomalies, airborne sounds, or seismic signals from inside the earth. Further research conclusively showed the sounds originated in the ocean. The Russians were suspected of trying to set up a sonic standing wave pattern (similar to burglar alarms now available) to monitor US submarine movements. This possibility resulted in BIG study grants! After biologists William Schevill and William Watkins proved the sounds were made by fin whales, the funds dried up. . .

In 1979 mathematicians studied the change in the velocity of underwater sound due to density/temperature gradients. They confirmed that sounds could be "trapped" in deep ocean layers by being refracted by cold layers below and warm layers above the "Sofar" layer. The "wavelength" of the refraction was calculated at forty miles! This means the sound impulse traveled from 300 feet deep down to 15,000 feet deep and back up in a horizontal distance of 40 miles. Whales had to be a multiple of 40 miles apart to hear the sound and the pulse was audible for several thousand miles.

Finally in 1992, whale scientist Chris Clark joined Navy researchers to use the hydrophones to study whales. They followed the movements of a blue whale near Bermuda from a listening station over 1000 miles away. The distinctive voice of this whale and its frequent singing enabled them to track it for 43 days as it traveled 1500 miles around Cuba and Bermuda.

ATOC: Navy scientists also worked with other scientists interested in temperature/density gradients. They planned and tested underwater sound blasts to measure the average ocean temperature. Preliminary tests showed good accuracy, and ATOC global warming temperature studies are underway that provide cheap, accurate results. (The warmer the water, the faster sound travels across the ocean.) Measuring the time to cross the entire ocean gives an average temperature that can be checked year after year.

ATOC caused controversy by picking important whale habitats in Monterey California and Hawaii to place some of their loudspeakers. They were insulting the animals that made the research possible. ATOC needs all the friends it can get to prevent mothballing of the SOSUS hydrophones. Roger Payne believes the ATOC program may justify SOSUS staying in operation so that whale researchers can use it. ATOC researchers may minimize irritation to whales and other sea life by studying their response to the new sounds.

Payne spent years near the tip of South America studying a group of right whales. His study group photographed 1200 individual whales from 1970 to 1994, and proved that some whales returned many times. They used callosities (callouses) on the whales' heads for identification. This work provided much more information on the whales' eating, mating and travel habits than tagging, followed by killing the whale within a few weeks to see how far it traveled.
However, SOSUS techniques also allow tracking and studying individual and group behaviors underwater, which could provide better data by orders of magnitude. Monitors could detect violations of agreements to protect species with new whaling quotas from chronic violator countries. The main holdup for whale research on SOSUS appears to be military security - researchers will need security clearance and probably supervision, because they can see all nations' warships and submarines.

Scribner's published Roger Payne's Among Whales in 1995. Other interesting topics include 40 Years of Humpback Song Variations (and the mating success of innovators); Womb with a View (echolocation by fetuses?); Whale Song Vibration of Wooden Boats (sirens?); 2200 Pound Testes Predict Mating Behavior; and Hunting-Lying-Killing Techniques of Russian, Japanese and other Violators of Whale Protection Agreements.

Roger Payne also narrated an IMAX production on whales that was Great!