There has been much discussion on how climate change impacts the ocean. Researchers in Baffin Bay found proof of how the ocean takes up excess heat from the atmosphere by working with the resident whales, the narwhals.
Narwhals, speckled blackish-brown over a white background, becoming whiter with age, are 13 to 18 feet long from head to flukes. There is no dorsal fin. The neck of the narwhal differs from most other whales. Like land mammals, the neck vertebrae are jointed, not fused. The shape of tail flukes differs between females and males. Female whales have flukes similar to dolphins, and the leading edge sweeps back to join the trailing edge obliquely in a more triangle-shaped shape. The male narwhal tail has more of a mustache shape. From the “small” where the tail meets the body, the leading edge is more concave, dipping back and out.
Jointed vertebrae and fluke hydrodynamics have evolved for male narwhals to carry a five to ten-foot-long tusk that erupts through the lip on the left side of the upper jaw. What was once a canine tooth has become a most remarkable left-handed helix spiral. Millions of nerve endings in the tusk connect seawater stimuli with the narwhal’s brain. Rubbing tusks together with male narwhals are thought to communicate the water characteristics each has experienced.
Narwhals may converse about water much like people talk of fine wines. Fourteen narwhals in Baffin Bay wearing sensor tags will tell us, later in this article, something about how climate change affects the seawater that flows into the Gulf of Maine.
Conversations in Boston and Portsmouth on climate change impacts on the ocean have escalated to swagger. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other water body in the world, and our waters are in the worst condition and worsening faster than others, they say.
The belief that one’s local ocean water body is warming faster than the rest of the ocean came suddenly, turned on like a light switch groped in the dark, by a single science journal publication splashed by the media. I was stunned to hear individuals who have spent much time on the ocean say something contrary to their own observations and personal experiences.
See you over there,
Rob
