A New Framework for Assessing the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on Marine Mammals in a Rapidly Changing Arctic

The recent loss of Arctic sea ice provides humans unprecedented access to the region. Marine mammals rely on sound as a primary sensory modality, and the noise associated with increasing human activities offshore can interfere with vital life functions. Many coastal communities rely on marine mammals for food and cultural identity, and subsistence hunters have expressed strong concerns that underwater sound from human activities negatively affects both the animals and hunting success. Federal regulations require scientists and oil and gas operators to acquire incidental harassment authorizations for activities that may disturb marine mammals. Currently, authorization requests are focused on the impacts of sound from activities considered in isolation of one another, and this precludes any possibility of a meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts from multiple sources. We propose a new assessment framework that is based on the acoustic habitats that constitute the aggregate sound field from multiple sources, compiled at spatial and temporal scales consistent with the ecology of Arctic marine mammals.