Concomitant with the sampling of ecological data sets on these top predators, the animals will themselves (via the equipment they carry) collect a vast, high-precision oceanographic data set from logistically difficult areas of ocean in Polar Seas at the fringes of the North and South Atlantic and the South Pacific that are strategically important to climate and ocean modelling.

Co-operation between programmes within IPY will provide MEOP with comprehensive, synoptic oceanographic coverage that will allow us, for the first time ever at this level, to quantify factors determining habitat selection by key polar marine mammal species. MEOP Norway will perform deployments on the deepest diving pinniped species in the Arctic and the Antarctic - hooded seals in the north (West Ice in collaboration with IMR using Lance) and southern elephant seals in the south (Bouvetøya).

This NPI programme is financially assisted by the Norwegian Research Council (IPY).