Offshore Wind Farms as an Anthropogenic Noise Source

The pivot from offshore oil to offshore wind has ushered in the advancement and development of offshore wind farms. While wind energy generation is an environmental improvement with regards to decreasing atmospheric carbon associated with fossil fuel energy generation, it does not come without environmental costs. Siting, construction, installation, operation, and maintenance are all accompanied by noise, including benthic substrate vibration, mechanical impulse propagation of pile driving, and other installation activities, airborne and underwater sound transmission of operational noise. Operational noises include transmission of gearbox noise (on legacy turbines) and propeller noises down the masts into the water and benthic substrate, but also infrasonic noise from propeller and mast interactions creating torsional and mast resonances, and microbarometric noise propagated into the barometric “soundscape.” These noises will affect the soundscapes of large areas of our Outer Continental Shelf habitats, both above and below the waterline, and into the benthos with known and unknown impacts on marine and avian biota.