If you needed another reason to think seals are cool… did you know Antarctic seals equipped with sensors on their heads have been collecting climate change data for us? As pinnipeds tend to be deep-divers, researchers in West Antarctica have been recruiting seals with sensors attached to their heads to collect data from the continent’s ice shelves. This is an alternative method to using boats; which can face difficulty navigating these complex environments, due to the large amounts of nutrients generated by the interactions between ocean, land and ice shelf. The sensors attached to the seals heads have been measuring temperature and salinity in the Amundsen Sea. Scientists believe that this remote and understudied patch of the ocean could be accelerating the melt of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and is key to predicting the ice sheet’s contribution to the world’s rising oceans. What flippin’ legends!
Photo: Seal by Lars Boehme.