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CABINET / Autonomous Biological Sensor Platforms

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Late in 2010, the Journal of Geophysical Research printed a report under the title “Narwhals Document Continued Warming of Southern Baffin Bay.”1 The research described by the report was heavily promoted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which had partially funded it, and the story was picked up by a number of newspapers and blogs, one of which praised the narwhals as “excellent field techs.”2 Who were these narwhals? How had they gotten into the business of not merely responding to or communicating among themselves about Arctic climate change but actually documenting it? Not surprisingly, while it may have been narwhals who documented Baffin Bay’s shifting temperatures, it was a team of humans, led by marine biologist Kristin Laidre, who were responsible for sharing the documents with the world. Laidre’s team had gathered the narwhals’ records, fed them into modeling and mapping software, cogitated over the results, and written the report. And, indeed, it was

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