Foundation gives $28M for Arctic research

A Canadian independent research funding group is putting $28 million into polar and cold-climate related work in Canada's North, including some research on Ellesmere Island.

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences announced the funding, which will support 36 new and ongoing research projects, on March 1. The funded projects will look at everything from the influence of tropical oceans on the Arctic climate, to the transport of pollution and its impact on the northern environment.

The Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change, which runs the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory at Eureka on Ellesmere Island, will receive more than $5 million over five years.

Kaley Walker, a researcher with the group, said Wednesday that it will study air quality, climate and the ozone layer in the Arctic atmosphere, which she compared to a sort of advanced warning system.

"Things that happen around the world in terms of our atmosphere and our climate tend to be magnified in the Arctic," she said.

"The Arctic is where we have polar ozone loss every springtime. It forms an ozone hole in the Antarctic. We don't get that quiteextreme sort of depletion in the North, but we do see some and it varies year to year."

Other funded projects will look at winter storms in the Iqaluit area andchanges in land and sea ice across the North, as well as developing strategies to help northerners adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The foundation, established in 2000, supports university-based research on weather and climate.