Climate change may make it harder to spot submarines
THE PENTAGON 'does not do climate-change crap", said Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's defence secretary, on March 9th. 'We do training and warfighting." Fair enough. But a new NATO study illustrates how closely the two are linked.
A submarine must remain undetected, eluding hydrophones towed by ships, dropped from planes and strung along the seabed. Just how quiet it needs to be depends on the surrounding water's acidity, salinity and temperature.
Higher carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere change all these things. The gas's mere presence acidifies seawater. Its warming effects alters its temperature, and by melting ice changes the salinity, too. Sources of ambient noise such as winds, waves and whales are all affected. And the changes all differ from place to place.
To work out the consequences for submariners, a team led by Andrea Gilli of the NATO Defence College in Rome and Mauro Gilli of ETH Zurich used computer modelling to examine how sound travelled through deep water in the past (from 1970 to 1999) and how climate models suggest it 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, a crucial battleground between Russian subs and NATO sub-hunters—as well as in the area between the first and second island chains in the Western Pacific, just to the east of Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines—detection will become harder. In the Bay of Biscay, off the French coast, a sub that could once be detected from 60km away will be spotted only at 20km.
In the Sea of Japan, however, local conditions will make life easier for the hunters. North Korean submarines operating in those waters at a depth of 100m could previously get to within 10km away without detection. In the future, estimate the authors, they could be seen from 45km off.
The hypothetical scenario the study considers is based on a worst-case outcome in which nothing has been done to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions; a trajectory most scientists now consider unrealistic. All the same, the trends identified in the paper are noteworthy. In recent years there has been much talk of new detection methods making the oceans more transparent. In fact, argue the authors, the seas might become more opaque.
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India.com
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- India.com
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Hindustan Times
20 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
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* Trump administration cut an estimated $180 million in Harvard's defense projects * Funding cuts affect military medical and scientific research, Govini analysis shows * Harvard sues, claiming cuts violate free-speech rights WASHINGTON, - When the Trump administration cut federal funding to Harvard University, it abruptly ended an estimated $180 million that the federal government had poured into U.S. military projects at Harvard in recent years, according to an analysis from a defense software company. The Trump administration announced in April that it was moving to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University. President Donald Trump said he was trying to force change at Harvard - and other top-level universities across the U.S. - because in his view they have been captured by leftist "woke" thought and become bastions of antisemitism. Some of the grants paid for military-specific medical research, studies on countering weapons of mass destruction and research on lasers, among numerous other topics, Reuters found. The abrupt halt stopped years-long projects and upended programs spread across several universities, not just Harvard. In 2025 alone, an estimated 103 grants totaling about $14 million will grind to a halt, according to an analysis by Govini, a defense software company. For example, U.S. officials ended Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Professor Katia Bertoldi's $6 million Pentagon-funded project developing shape-changing structures with military applications two weeks ago, despite being at a critical juncture in its research cycle. "We've been in year three, so we set up all the tools, and now we're really gaining momentum, and now it stops," Bertoldi said. Funded through the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, she was developing technology based on origami that would lead to reconfigurable antennas, and deployable shelters like field hospitals. Since 2020 the Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and every branch of the U.S. military have given Harvard 418 grants valued at $180 million, according to the analysis by Govini. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth "directed the termination of several programs, contracts and grants that were not aligned with the Department's priorities to cut wasteful spending, implement the President's orders, and reallocate savings to mission-critical priorities," a Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters. The bulk of those grants went to military medical research, basic scientific research and applied scientific research, Govini found, with the Army providing the most funding. The administration has frozen approximately $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard, with Trump complaining on Truth Social that Harvard has hired "Democrats, Radical Left idiots and 'bird brains'" as professors. On Monday, Trump said he is considering redirecting billions of dollars of previously awarded scientific and engineering research grants from Harvard to trade schools. Harvard has sued to restore the funding, calling the cuts an unconstitutional attack on its free-speech rights. The research cancellations affect extensive collaborative networks. Bertoldi's project included researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia Tech. Scientists warn these cuts may have strategic implications as China has heavily invested in research. Bertoldi said, "In China, as far as I know, colleagues that moved back to China, there's a lot of support for this type of research."
