Scientists Enlist Nature's Divers to Sample Icy Sea

At the moment, the scientists-- who plan to leave this week once the ice begins to break up -- are taking daily readings from the narwhals and comparing them with measurements they are taking with standard oceanographic instruments at 15 stations across Baffin Bay. These readings are conducted by one of Steele's field scientists, who is using more sophisticated monitoring equipment; they measure the water's salinity as well as its temperature and depth.

Over each 24-hour period. a single narwhal diving in the Davis Strait -- which connects Baffin Bay in the north to the Labrador Sea in the south -- transmits about 410 depth-temperature readings from depths ranging between 3 feet and 1.1 miles.

Laidre said one advantage of using narwhals is that they migrate in a predictable way. "We know where they're going to go," she said. "It's not like putting a tag on a dog and he runs all over town."

Susan Lozier, a physical oceanographer at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions who studies ocean currents and climate change, said she would welcome any information the researchers collect from narwhals.

"Any data is good data," Lozier said. "Traditionally, the ocean is so undersampled, our predictive ability is 20 to 30 years behind atmospheric scientists'."

The total expedition -- which is being sponsored by the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Ocean Exploration -- will cost nearly $430,000.

Since some data suggest there has been a warming and freshening of water in the area, scientists are eager to learn what this means for the climate models that policymakers are using to determine how the world should respond to global warming.

"NOAA's mission includes exploring the ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge, and this mission does that," said Fred Gorell, a spokesman for the Office of Ocean Exploration.

Gorell added that the data the researchers are collecting will become part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, which the United States and other governments use to monitor the seas.

"I think it is interesting," he said, "that we've now shown that narwhal 'oceanographers' are contributors to GEOSS, providing ocean temperature and other data not otherwise available from one of the planet's fastest-changing ocean areas."