Narwhals and climate change

[j d worthington]

Narwhals aid in study of climate change - Yahoo! News

Title: "Narwhals aid in study of climate change", from AP, datelined Fri., Apr. 20, 2007.

SEATTLE - Most climate researchers use weather balloons, satellites, deep-sea submersibles or ice-drilling rigs to mine their data on global warming. A biologist at the University of Washington has turned to a more inventive method: attaching instruments to the backs of narwhals, marine mammals with unicorn-like tusks that live in arctic seas.

Kristin Laidre and her colleagues at the Polar Science Center at the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory have tagged three of the creatures with satellite transmitters that track the animals' movements and measure water temperatures in a region where researchers believe rapid warming is taking place.

The narwhals dive as deep as one mile to feed on bottom fish and already have provided the first winter temperature measurements in Baffin Bay between Canada and Greenland.

And that's just the beginning of the article....