Listen to the sound of coral reefs around the world

STORY: Google says it's using AI to help scientists

monitor the health of coral reefs

They're sifting through hundreds of recordings

Locator: Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

and some of them were on display at COP27,

where visitors could hear the difference themselves

[Burned on captions]

You are now listening to live audio from the sea right here in Sharm el-Sheikh

This is what a healthy reef should sound like

The silence you are now hearing is the sound of a damaged and unhealthy reef

It was recorded in the Philippines

(Mary Schodipo, Marine biologist)

“The idea is for it to be like an online platform so that anyone can access it. So, we’ve got like a listening collective where you have ears all over the world and also people listen differently, so a young person can hear higher frequencies and they might pick out a fish sound that an older person won’t. So, it’s kind of using that collective ability, to one go through all the stuff, but also to get through our data, but also awareness."

The hope is the recordings can help track illegal mining or progress in ‘restored’ areas

as well as to learn more about how fish communicate

“So, it's a whole sonic world that we're not aware of, so it's really exciting to find out what all these sounds mean..." (EDIT) "...there's all these nuances in the sounds that we want to know about so we can understand what is happening, how they're communicating, and also ways we can also help improve regeneration through their sounds."