VIGEANT: A Cracker Jack team of researchers has been at work this winter bravely diving and swimming in the chilly arctic waters between northern Canada and Greenland.

VIGEANT: The divers have been gathering data beneath the ice of Baffin Bay. You can spot them when they surface by their unusual tusks. Oh, that’s right, these novice oceanographers are actually narwhals, sometimes known as the “unicorn of the sea.”

The single, long, spiraled tooth growing from a male narwhal’s upper lip was likely the origin of the myth of the unicorn. Fairy-tales aside, now these narwhals are getting the facts.

The data Leidre and the narwhals are collecting may help climatologists answer big questions about what’s going on as the region warms and more ice melts. The narwhals winter home of Baffin Bay is tied to the Gulf Stream, a major influence on the climate of North America and Europe. But the bay’s dense winter ice cover has made it difficult for scientists to get temperature data. Now, with the help of nature’s legendary unicorn of the sea, the picture may become clearer.

And that’s no fairy tale.