Offshore Arctic waters are the most remote and unexplored areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Generally covered by sea ice for most of the year, these waters are characterized by darkness for up to six months and inhospitable temperatures reaching -40°C in mid-winter. With few exceptions, offshore Arctic ecosystems are logistically difficult, or sometimes impossible, to observe with traditional platforms like vessels or airplanes, which can be impacted by severe environmental conditions. Oceanographers are increasingly relying on data collection from nontraditional platforms adapted to the Arctic to investigate major scientific questions about ecosystem changes in the Arctic Ocean.

Laidre, K.L., and M.P. Heide-Jørgensen. 2007. Using narwhals as ocean-observing platforms in the high Arctic. Oceanography 20(4):30–35, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2007.02.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.