I don’t think we passed on Friday’s news that the Tories have restored some funding to the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL).
PEARL, which has been tracking ozone depletion, air quality and climate change in the High Arctic since 2005, and contributes data to several international environmental monitoring projects, is run by an informal network of university researchers called the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change. The network announced early in 2012 that the station would be forced to cease year-round operations at the end of April that year after being unable to secure the $1.5-million annual funding it needed to stay open all year. The station had been funded primarily by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, a granting agent funded by the federal government from 2000 to 2010. In the 2011 budget, no money was allocated to CFCAS. Instead, $35 million over five years was budgeted for the CCAR program, but it had not yet started accepting applications for funding. The network had applied for other grants, but had been turned down for all of them.
Great news!
