Tyler Wynn
The call of a whale is a powerful thing. Blue whales, for example, can hear each other up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) away in good conditions. This is because sound waves travel much faster and further through water than air – roughly 1,500 metres per second in seawater, compared to 340 metres per second in the air. Whale calls can be used for communication and navigation, with the call of a fin whale travelling 250 kilometres at the surface and over 6,000 kilometres in deeper waters. Whale songs are incredibly loud, reaching 180 decibels – as loud as a jet plane.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Speed of sound waves in water | 5,400 kilometres per hour |
| Speed of sound waves in seawater | 1,500 metres per second |
| Speed of sound waves in air | 340 metres per hour |
| Blue whale call range | 1,600 kilometres |
| Fin whale call range (surface) | 250 kilometres |
| Fin whale call range (deep water) | 6,000 kilometres |
| Humpback whale call range | 6,400 kilometres |
| Blue whale decibels | 180 dB |
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What You'll Learn
Humpback whale songs can travel over 10,000 miles
Whales have developed behavioural strategies to communicate with each other over enormous distances. Whale calls can bounce off the surface of the sea and the ocean shelf, quickly dissipating. However, when a whale dives deeper, the physical refraction of the ocean traps the energy of their calls, allowing them to travel farther and faster.
The call of a humpback whale can travel up to 6,400 kilometres. In comparison, a fin whale's call can travel up to 250 kilometres at the surface and 6,000 kilometres in deeper waters. Blue whales, the loudest animals on the planet, can be heard by other whales up to 1,600 kilometres away in favourable oceanographic conditions.
Whale sounds are made in the infrasonic range, which is too low for humans to hear. However, whales have exceptional hearing and some of the most varied vocal repertoires on the planet, including pulses, moans, sounds, and ultrasound. Sound waves travel far faster and farther through water than through air—approximately 1,500 metres per second in seawater compared to 340 metres per second in the air.
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Blue whales can hear other whales up to 1,000 miles away
Blue whales are generally solitary creatures. However, they do need to communicate with other whales, especially when it comes to finding a group to migrate with or a mate. To do this, blue whales rely on their sense of hearing, which is exceptionally powerful.
Blue whales can hear other whales up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) away. This is due to a combination of their vocal abilities and the acoustic properties of water. Sound waves travel faster and further through water than through air—approximately 1,500 metres per second in seawater compared to 340 metres per second in air.
The call of a blue whale can reach 180 decibels, which is as loud as a jet plane. Blue whales also create the lowest-frequency vocalisations of any creature on Earth. This is because they have evolved unique structures in their larynxes, with tiny, pyramid-shaped cartilages called arytenoids changing into elongated cylinders that form a U-shape. When air is pushed from their lungs, it vibrates against a fatty cushion inside the larynx, generating very low-frequency underwater sounds.
The ability of sound to travel further in water than in air is not limited to the vocalisations of blue whales. For example, the call of a fin whale may travel 250 kilometres at the surface but more than 6,000 kilometres in the deep sound channel. Similarly, humpback whale songs have been recorded from upwards of 10,000 miles away.
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Sound waves travel faster and further in water than in air
Whale songs have been recorded from over 10,000 miles away. The blue whale's song can be heard by other whales up to 1,600 km away. The fin whale's call travels up to 250 km at the surface and 6,000 km in deeper waters. The humpback whale's call can travel up to 6,400 km.
In contrast, sound waves in air quickly lose energy as they travel, causing the sound to become less loud. Sound waves also have trouble travelling from air into water and are mostly reflected at the air-water interface instead of being transmitted. The human ear has evolved to hear sound in air and is not as effective when submerged in water. When sound waves are transmitted into water, they are perceived as louder due to the faster speed and longer retention of energy.
The speed of sound in water can be affected by temperature and pressure. At the bottom of the thermocline, where the temperature is constant but pressure increases, the speed of sound increases as well. Sound waves can also be refracted, or bent, towards areas of minimum sound speed, allowing them to travel thousands of meters.
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Whale calls travel further at greater depths
Whale calls can travel thousands of kilometres. For example, the song of a humpback whale has been recorded from over 10,000 miles away. The call of a fin whale can travel 250 kilometres at the surface and 6,000 kilometres in deeper waters.
Whales are highly social animals and depend on sound to interact with each other. They are also able to use sound to navigate, listening to the echoes of their calls bouncing off distant ocean shelves and coastlines.
The reason whale calls travel further at greater depths is due to the physical properties of the ocean. Sound waves diminish in volume rapidly close to the surface, but at varying depths below the surface, sound waves suffer little transmission loss and increase in the speed at which they travel. Whale songs can travel for thousands of kilometres through this horizontal band of water, known as the 'deep sound channel' or SOFAR channel (for Sound Fixing and Ranging channel).
The SOFAR channel was discovered by Cold War scientists in the 1940s, who used it to listen for Soviet submarines thousands of kilometres away. In the channel, sound waves are locked into a type of horizontal pressure plane, where the pressure is too low above and too high below, so the sound energy travels much further as it is not lost on the y-axis.
The speed of sound is roughly four times greater in water than in the atmosphere at sea level. As light becomes less relevant underwater, sound becomes more important to cetaceans such as dolphins and whales.
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Whale sounds are too low-frequency for humans to hear
Whale sounds can travel extremely long distances, with blue whale songs carrying up to 1,600 km away and humpback whale calls reaching up to 6,400 km. However, the ability of whale sounds to travel such vast distances is not solely due to their low frequency. The curvature of the Earth also plays a role, as sound waves can travel in all directions and reflect off surfaces.
While whales produce a wide range of sounds, including grunts, groans, thwops, snorts, and barks, their songs tend to be low-frequency and infrasonic. These low-frequency sounds are outside the typical human hearing range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz. For example, the vocalizations of humpback whales can range from 20 Hz to upward of 24 kHz, with some sounds exceeding this upper limit and reaching frequencies that humans cannot hear.
Baleen whales, such as humpback whales, blue whales, and right whales, produce low-frequency sounds. In contrast, toothed whales like killer whales are famous for their ability to generate high-pitched clicks for echolocation. The ability to produce and hear high-frequency sounds exceeding 150 kilohertz is not limited to toothed whales, as some baleen whale species can also perceive ultrasounds.
The low-frequency sounds produced by baleen whales are more challenging to study due to their large size and the resulting complexity of their ear structures. These whales have fatty pads near their ears that are designed to capture specific frequencies, and their ear bones are housed within a dense, conch-like bone. While some baleen whale sounds can be audible to humans as low moans, such as the 52 Hz vocalizations recorded by a team of marine biologists in the North Pacific, most of their vocalizations are too low-frequency for humans to perceive without specialized equipment.
The impact of human-made noise pollution on whale communication is an area of ongoing research. While noise pollution has increased ambient ocean noise, some researchers suggest that higher pitches would be expected if whales were straining to be heard. However, constant vessel noises may mask their communication signals, potentially disrupting communication within and between groups.
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Frequently asked questions
Whale sounds can travel extremely long distances. The call of a fin whale, for example, may travel 250 km at the surface, but more than 6,000 km in the deep sound channel. Blue whales can hear other whales up to 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away in good conditions. Humpback whale songs have been recorded from upwards of 10,000 miles away.
Sound waves travel far faster and farther through water than through air. Sound waves can travel roughly 1,500 m per second in seawater, compared to just 340 m per second in the air.
Whales use sound to communicate with each other over enormous distances. They also use sound for navigation, creating acoustic maps of their environments by listening to the echoes of their calls bouncing off distant ocean shelves and coastlines.
No, blue whale sounds are made in the infrasonic range, which is too low for humans to hear.
