The British Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines regularly cruise under the Arctic ice cap, looking for Russkie subs lost since the Cold War or bumping into whales or whatever. While they tool around, they’re recording environmental data with sensitive instruments all the while. Now some of that data is going to be declassified in order to aid climate scientists’ study of the polar oceans, which are melting and wreaking havoc on global weather patterns already.

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Tim Clarke, a marine scientist with [the U.K.’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory], said: “What this represents is the availability of important scientific data, previously inaccessible, which can only move the study forward.”

He added that “any progress will, ultimately, lead to an improved oceanographic product” for the Royal Navy.

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The exact positions at which the data were gathered will still be masked, because, you know, commies!