Sound of rain under water

Rain is one of the most important components of climate. Knowledge of its distribution and intensity is important not only to farmers and flood control planners, but also to meteorologists, oceanographers, and scientists who study climate (climatologists). Of particular interest to climatologists is the release of latent heat each time a raindrop forms. It takes energy to evaporate liquid water and this energy is stored in water vapor as ˇ°latent heat.ˇ± The formation of raindrops releases latent heat, which is one of the primary sources of energy that drives atmospheric circulation. Thus, scientists need to improve their understanding of the global distribution and intensity of rainfall to improve weather and climate forecasts. Furthermore, layers of relatively fresh water due to rain at the ocean surface are now thought to significantly affect oceanic circulation (Anderson et al. 1996), another important component of global climate. Unfortunately, rainfall is very difficult to measure, especially over the ocean where few people live and where rain gauges commonly used on land don't work. But we know that rain falling onto a tin roof makes a lot of noise, and so does rain falling onto water. In fact, rain falling onto water is one of the loudest sources of underwater sound, therefore we can measure oceanic rain by listening to it from below the ocean surface. "