Whales found in the north Pacific are known to migrate over several thousand kilometers, from the Alaskan coast where they heartily feed during the summer to low latitude waters where they breed during the winter. Therefore, it is assumed that whales are using the “deep sound channel” for their long-distance communication. The main objective of this study is to clarify the behaviors of baleen whales from the standpoint of acoustical oceanography. Hence, authors investigated the possibility of long distance communication in various species of baleen whales, by simulating the long-distance propagation of their sound transmission, by applying the mode theory to actual sound speed profiles and by simulating their transmission frequencies. As a result, the possibility of long distance communication among blue whales using the deep sound channel was indicated. It was also indicated that communication among fin whales and blue whales can be made possible by coming close to shore slopes such as the Island of Hawaii.

Despite of small land area, Japan has vast EEZ, which is expected to have potential mineral resources. Extensive seismic surveys have been conducted for those targets. However, airguns used for the survey generate intense and low-frequency impulse sound, which could disturb or harm marine mammal behavior and auditory system. In June 2016, NOAA released “Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap” that recommends modeling of sound propagation in the context of realistic environmental parameters to assess noise impacts on marine creatures. Japan has remarkable seasonal climate changes and complex ocean-bottom topography with trenches and seamounts; therefore, such model is worthwhile. Here, we propose a modeling method utilizing ARGO data includes seasonal climate changes and LEVITUS data, and ocean-bottom topographic configuration data from Google Earth. We calculated long range propagation of airgun sounds in different sound profiles and ocean-bottom topographic configurations around Ogasawara Islands, which is known as a cetacean habitat. Results showed that seasonal climate change and the precision of the ocean-bottom topographic configuration caused significant differences in sound propagation. These findings suggest that the realistic environmental parameters is essentially needed for the modeling of sound propagation and proposed method is a useful tool to assess noise impacts on marine mammals.