The term “Global Change” calls up images on a grand scale. Perhaps the visual of earth from space, forests growing and sinking, mass migrations, cities rising a falling. Until recently, the concept of global change occurred on broad almost indiscernible scales.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the globe changed almost instantaneously. Human activities halted at a scale unseen since the industrial revolution, and importantly to us here at Sound Science – in Alaska cruise ships stopped sailing.
In collaboration with partners at the National Park Service, University of Alaska Southeast, and NOAA we have begun the act of listening to these quiet oceans to see if we can track how humpback whales may be responding to what may be their first ship free summer in a generation.
Read more about of COVID-19 work in this article put out by National Geographic.