Published 2026-05-16 · data 2022 · percent of ocean area with shipping noise
Ship noise drowns whale song
Container routes are acoustic highways. Marine mammals navigate by sound — engines scramble it.
Shipping noise is chronic — whales hear this grid as a traffic map. This grid divides ocean acoustic footprint (2022 snapshot) into colored bands — Elevated shipping noise, Asia & Pacific, and 2 more groups — using equal squares so you compare shares, not country size on a map.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of ocean area with shipping noise (0.1% of ocean acoustic footprint) · 1,000 cells
Context
The 2022 figures from IMO noise guidelines put Elevated shipping noise at 62% of ocean acoustic footprint and Asia & Pacific at 19.8% — about 100 percent of ocean area with shipping noise in this edition's rounding.
IMO / Duke shipping noise maps: majority of ocean experiences elevated low-frequency noise.
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-16-noise-oceans