Climate change can make it more difficult to detect submarines

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Economist, The Economist 1 Min Read 30 May 2025, 02:41 pm Ist Spanish Navy Soldiers stand on the Conning Tower of the Spanish Submarine ‘Isaac Peral’ S-81 during a fleet parade, on the day of exercise Dynamic Mariner 25 military drilling training, Donald Trump secretary Donald Trump on March 9. “We do training and war fighting.” Fair enough. But a new NATO study illustrates how the two are linked. A submarine must remain unnoticed, avoid hydrophones dragged by ships, fell from aircraft and tossed along the seabed. How quiet it should be depends on the acidity, salinity and temperature of the surrounding water. Higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere change all these things. The guest’s mere presence sours seawater. Its warm -up changes its temperature, and by melting ice, the salinity also changes. Sources of surrounding noise such as winds, waves and whales are all affected. And the changes differ from place to place. To work out the consequences for submarines, a team led by Andrea Gilli of NATO Defense College used in Rome and Mauro Gilli of Eth Zurich computer modeling to investigate how sound traveled through deep water in the past (from 1970 to 1999) and how climate models will do so in the future (from 2070 to 2099). The researchers originally published their findings in the Texas National Security Review in 2024. In the North Atlantic Ocean, an important battlefield between Russian subs and the NATO-Sub-hunters Sowel than in the area between the first and second island chains in the western Pacific, just in the east of Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. In the Bay of Biscay, on the French coast, a sub that could once be detected from 60 km away will only be seen at 20 km. However, in the Sea of ​​Japan, local conditions will make the hunters easier. Northern Korean submarines that work in those waters at a depth of 100 m could previously get away within 10 km without detection. In the future, the writers estimate, they can be seen from 45 km. The hypothetical scenario considering the study is based on a worst outcome in which nothing was done to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas; A trajectory that most scientists now regard as unrealistic. Nevertheless, the trends identified in the newspaper are remarkable. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about new tracking methods that make the oceans more transparent. In fact, the writers argue, the seas can become opaque. Curious about the world? Sign in to Simply Science, our weekly subscriber newsletter, just to enjoy the scientific coverage of science. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Climate Change Read Next Story