February 8, 2008
The trouble with average noise
Roger Wood of LADACAN
- It is noisy events which disturb
- A 50% increase in flights raises the average noise by just 1.8 decibels
- It leads to stupid conclusions:
o “ . . . air noise impacts have been considered in terms of the ‘perceptibility’ and significance of changes in air noise exposure around the Airport. PPG 24 states that a change of 1 to 3 dB(A) is considered the minimum perceptible noise level under normal conditions.” (Revised ES Non-technical summary Dec 2008, page 8 )
But more people will be disturbed in their home!
When a person sits at his home and an airplane is taking off and generates 88.8db, it doesn’t really mater what is the average.