Arctic Acoustic Environments – Federating observations and analyses with the International Quiet Ocean Experiment

Arctic waters are experiencing rapid changes due to global warming, affecting ecosystems and leading to increasing economic activities. Many of these changes can be measured directly or indirectly with underwater acoustics. The Working Group on the Arctic Acoustic Environment (AAE) of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE) aims to stimulate observations of sound (levels and distribution) in the Arctic Ocean and its impacts. We organised a virtual conference in November 2020 to share recent results from the international community and discuss common issues and possible solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the challenges of Arctic deployments and recoveries, curtailing access to ships at very short notice, but also opening the way for more direct collaboration. The post-COVID task will be to establish more resilient international back-up mechanisms for Arctic operations to support acoustic (and other) observations. The increasing length of the measurements, spanning several decades now, with sampling rates often close to 100,000 samples/second, results in “big data” challenges of storage, sharing, data retrieval and long-term archiving. Discussions also addressed the emerging trends in acoustic propagation models across complex terrains and machine learning (with the need for accessibility and traceability). Finally, the embedding of local and traditional knowledge must be accomplished through dialogue and co-ownership of the science and results.