Research Spotlight: Narwhals document continued warming of Baffin Bay
Abstract
Baffin Bay, situated between northern Greenland and Canada, is a major gateway between waters from the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Dynamics within the bay help govern how much water from the Arctic flows south and sinks to form North Atlantic Deep Water, a deep current that drives ocean circulation on a global scale. Unfortunately, monitoring the deep reaches of Baffin Bay throughout the year is difficult—most oceanographic data are collected in the summer when the area is ice free. To overcome this inability to collect data in harsh winter conditions, Laidre et al. hit upon a novel solution: mounting instruments on narwhals to collect temperature and depth data. Narwhals, a top predator in this frigid ecosystem, make annual migrations from summering grounds in the Canadian High Arctic and western Greenland to wintering grounds in the dense offshore pack ice of Baffin Bay. Moreover, narwhals, which rank among the deepest-diving whales in the world, dive extensively and repeatedly to depths exceeding 1800 meters under pack ice to reach their major food source, the flatfish that swarm on the seafloor of Baffin Bay. Narwhal dives are nearly vertical, making this whale an ideal platform on which to mount surveying instruments. (Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, doi:10.1029/2009JC005820, 2010)
- Publication:
-
EOS Transactions
- Pub Date:
- March 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1029/2011EO090009
- Bibcode:
- 2011EOSTr..92...80K
- Keywords:
-
- Oceanography: General: Arctic and Antarctic oceanography (9310;
- 9315);
- Biogeosciences: Marine systems (4800);
- Cryosphere: Sea ice (4540);
- Oceanography: General: Ocean observing systems;
- Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Ecosystems;
- structure;
- dynamics;
- and modeling (0439)