Can you hear whales above water? It’s a question many curious minds ask, especially those lucky enough to witness whales in the wild. Whales are famous for their underwater songs. But can these powerful sounds break through the surface for us to hear? The short answer? Not really, but science has some fascinating twists!
Let’s explore what happens to whale sounds above water, how they travel, and how we can actually “listen” to whales without even getting wet.
How Do Whales Make Sound Underwater?
Whales are highly acoustic animals. They use sound to communicate, find mates, navigate, and even locate prey. Underwater, sound travels over four times faster than in air, about 1,500 m/s (Nummela et al., 2007).
This allows whale calls to travel hundreds of kilometers without losing power. For example, the blue whale’s low-frequency moans can cross entire ocean basins, but while whales are loud underwater, the ocean surface blocks most of their sound from escaping into the air.
Whales Are Loud But Not For Your Ears
Whale communication is built for water. In fact, underwater sound travels about 1,500 meters per second, four times faster than in air (Nummela et al., 2007). Thanks to this, a blue whale’s moan can be heard hundreds of kilometers away by other whales, but that same sound gets blocked by the water-air boundary.
This is due to acoustic impedance mismatch. In simple terms, most underwater sounds bounce back when they reach the surface (Mooney et al., 2016). The ocean acts like a giant speaker that keeps the sound sealed in. So no, standing on a boat deck or a cliff, you won’t hear that whale serenade echoing through the air.
But Whales Don’t Just Make Noise, They Make Vibrations
Here’s where things get interesting: a 2016 study showed that whales generate not only pressure-based sound waves, but also high levels of particle motion, that is, physical vibrations in the water (Mooney et al., 2016).
These vibrations are powerful and travel farther than scientists once thought. They may even affect objects (like boat hulls) above the surface. That means whales are not just heard, they’re felt.
How Do Scientists Hear Whales?
Even though we can’t hear whales above water with our ears, we can still listen in.
Scientists use hydrophones, underwater microphones that capture both sound pressure and particle motion. These tools help researchers study how whales communicate across long distances (Wahlberg et al., 2016).
Conclusion
Although the whales are among the most vocal and loud animals in the ocean, their songs are articulated underwater to communicate, not between the ear-lids of human beings. Most of the vocalizations of whales are shielded across the water-air interface as a consequence of the physics of how sound travels.
So next time you go whale watching, know this: just because you cannot hear them does not mean they are not singing under your feet right now.
Would you like to know the best times for whale watching?
Take a look at our whale watching calendar and plan your next adventure! Don’t miss the chance to spot these majestic creatures in Azorean waters. 🐋 🌊
FAQs
No, humans usually cannot hear whales from above the water. Whale vocalizations are designed for underwater transmission and are blocked by the surface due to acoustic impedance mismatch.
Most whale sounds are low-frequency and travel efficiently in water, not in air. When these sounds reach the surface, nearly all the acoustic energy is reflected into the ocean.
It’s a physical barrier that prevents sound from passing effortlessly between water and air. This is why underwater sounds, like whale songs, don’t often break through the ocean’s surface.
Yes. Scientists use hydrophones to detect whale sounds underwater. Some whale-watching boats even let visitors listen to live whale vocalizations through speakers.
Only if you’re using underwater recording equipment placed near the shore, without hydrophones, are whale songs naturally audible from land or the surface of the sea.
References
- Mooney, T. A., Kaplan, M. B., & Lammers, M. O. (2016). Singing whales generate high levels of particle motion: Implications for acoustic communication and hearing? Biology Letters, 12(10), 20160381. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0381
- Nummela, S., Thewissen, J. G. M., Bajpai, S., Hussain, S. T., & Kumar, K. (2007). Sound transmission in archaic and modern whales: Anatomical adaptations for underwater hearing. The Anatomical Record, 290(6), 716–733. https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.20528
