Elephant Seals Join Fight Against Climate Change. By Michael Perry, Reuters, August 12, 2008. "Elephant seals swimming under Antarctic ice and fitted with special sensors are providing scientists with crucial data on ice formation, ocean currents and climate change, a study released on Tuesday said… 'They have made it possible for us to observe large areas of the ocean under the sea ice in winter for the first time,' said co-author Steve Rintoul from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Conventional oceanographic monitoring from ships, satellites and drifting buoys, cannot provide observations under sea ice… The elephant seals have provided scientists with a 30-fold increase in data recorded in parts of the Southern Ocean, said the study by a team of French, Australian, U.S. and British scientists and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Between 2004 and 2005, the seals swam up to 65 kilometres (40 miles) a day, supplying scientists with 16,500 ice profiles. The seals [see image] dived to a depth of more than 500 metres (1,500 feet) on average and to a maximum depth of nearly 2 km (a mile)."
2008-08-12
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