Airborne sound propagation over sea during offshore wind farm piling

Offshore piling for wind farm construction has attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to the extremely high noise emission levels associated with such operations. While underwater noise levels were shown to be harmful for the marine biology, the propagation of airborne piling noise over sea has not been studied in detail before. In this study, detailed numerical calculations have been performed with the Green's Function Parabolic Equation (GFPE) method to estimate noise levels up to a distance of 10 km. Measured noise emission levels during piling of pinpiles for a jacket-foundation wind turbine were assessed and used together with combinations of the sea surface state and idealized vertical sound speed profiles (downwind sound propagation). Effective impedances were found and used to represent non-flat sea surfaces at low-wind sea states 2, 3, and 4. Calculations show that scattering by a rough sea surface, which decreases sound pressure levels, exceeds refractive effects, which increase sound pressure levels under downwind conditions. This suggests that the presence of wind, even when blowing downwind to potential receivers, is beneficial to increase the attenuation of piling sound over the sea. A fully flat sea surface therefore represents a worst-case scenario.