Expanding our View of U.S. Ocean Soundscapes: Check Out New Data & Interactive Features

["Carrie Wall Bell - NOAA Affiliate " <>]

Dear partners, collaborators, and friends,

We are pleased to announce exciting new enhancements to the U.S. Ocean Sound Monitoring and Condition Reporting website. Building on our April 2026 launch, these updates expand geographic coverage, incorporate new monitoring stations and deployments, and introduce interactive features for exploring ocean soundscape conditions.

What's New?

🌊 Expanded Geographic Coverage

The platform now spans 12 National Marine Sanctuaries and 3 new acoustic monitoring regions: 

• New England

• Gulf of Alaska

• Humboldt Coast

📍 New Monitoring Stations

The platform now provides standardized sound level metrics, acoustic detection products, and other ocean indicators across 40 monitoring stations, including 11 new to the platform: 

• 9 from NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 

• 2 from Scripps Institution of Oceanography Marine Bioacoustics Research Collaborative

📊 Enhanced Visualizations and Interactive Features

New detection graphics and interactive features make it easier to explore and compare seasonal and annual soundscape conditions across our growing number of deployments, stations, and regions. 

To learn more, select the “How to interact with the graphic” button within each region’s Ocean Sound Conditions section. 

A Collaborative Effort

Through nationally coordinated passive acoustic monitoring, we provide place-based, contextualized ocean soundscape information aligned with international standards to support scientific research, resource protection, and management.

We invite you to explore the latest updates, share the reports with your networks, and send us your feedback.

Thank you for your continued collaboration, interest and support!

Sincerely,

Lindsey Peavey Reeves 

Carrie Wall Bell

Emma Beretta

Samara Haver 

Tim Rowell 

Eden Zang 

Hadley Clark

Quincy Cantu

… and many more collaborators!

Data Providers and Project Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the following data providers for making underwater sound recordings accessible via NCEI’s Passive Acoustic Data Archive, enabling this large-scale, long-term reporting effort: 

• NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries

• NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service

• NOAA/National Park Service Ocean Noise Reference Station Network

• Naval Postgraduate School

• Scripps Institution of Oceanography

• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, who have also been essential to maintaining PyPAM-Based Processing

The data processing and visualizations underpinning these reports build on years of collaboration, particularly the community standards and tools developed through the SoundCoop project (supported by NOAA Integrated Ocean Observing System, Bureau for Ocean Energy Management, U.S. Navy Living Marine Resources, and the Office of Naval Research) and the NMFS Passive Acoustic Monitoring Strategic Initiative. 

Carrie C. Wall, PhD

Ocean Acoustic Archives

 

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences | University of Colorado Boulder 

Embedded in the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305

In support of NOAA Fisheries

CIRES | Water Column Sonar Archive | Passive Acoustic Archive 

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