Getting ready for Polar Night in Eureka | CREATE Arctic Science

Crow Emily gives a plain-language summary about her research in the Arctic at the CANDAC facility in Eureka.

Duck sets the Record Straight on Canadian Arctic Science

Disturbing words from Canada’s Enviroment Minister Peter Kent. This past week he wrote a letter to the Victoria Times-Colonist mis-representing several important facts about the Harper Government’s brutal, targeted cuts on Arctic science. Prof. T. Duck (Dalhousie University) replies to Kent’s misrepresentation of the facts in a letter to iPolitics.ca, concluding:

… point-by-point Kent’s claims about PEARL are factually incorrect. Many other claims in the Times-Colonist letter have been so profoundly discredited that it is no small wonder he had the gall to utter them. This past week, in response to criticism he had “misled Canadians”, Kent told an opposition MP that she should talk to “better informed scientists”. What we really need is a better-informed Minister.

I encourage you to read the rest of Prof. Duck’s letter on iPolitics.ca. 

Paul and Emily are on there way home from Eureka after freeing a stuck pump chamber. #CANDAC

After a full day's work Emily and Paul demonstrate the required leverage to remove a stubborn pump chamber from the CANDAC CRL lidar transmitter.

Petition to Minister Kent to save the Canadian Polar Enviroment Atmospheric Research Lab

If you think it is a bad decision by the Canadian government to stop funding atmospheric research (including ozone studies) in the Arctic please sign this petition.

You don't have to be from Canada to sign and have your voice to be heard.

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-honorable-peter-kent-minister-of-the-environment-fund-the-polar-environment-atmospheric-research-laboratory#

When Opinion Trumps Scientific Reason #TheMark #PEARL #ozone #EnvironmentCanada

Or the ideological basis for federal cuts to environmental spending.

The closure of Canada’s Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL) has shocked many Canadians. Located at 80°N in the High Arctic on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, PEARL is the northernmost civilian research laboratory in the world. It is internationally recognized for ozone and climate research, and helped discover the first-ever Arctic ozone hole in 2011. PEARL is a Canadian success story that one U.S. government scientist deemed a “national treasure.” Now, many are left wondering why the Canadian government decided to bury that treasure.

Like most university-based environmental-research programs, PEARL depends upon federal grants to operate. However, in recent years, funding opportunities for projects like PEARL have been narrowed or eliminated. Government support for PEARL’s main sponsor, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences was cut off. Funding that was promised for climate and atmospheric science in the 2011 Federal Budget has been held up for nearly a year. The impact of this funding gap is far from benign. It has forced some of Canada’s best researchers to leave the country to find work. These experts were cultivated in Canada over many years and at great cost. It will take a generation to replace them.

Related: Environment and Economics: A False Dichotomy

The funding crisis at our universities mirrors the ongoing cutbacks at Environment Canada (EC). In July 2011, the government announced that it would eliminate 776 positions from EC, with 300 staff to be declared surplus. The cuts are undermining important research and monitoring programs in ozone, atmospheric radiation, climate adaptation, environmental toxics, air quality, and airborne research. Canadians depend upon these programs to ensure their environmental security, health, and safety.

How, then, can the government sufficiently defend these cutbacks?

It’s possible that a scientific review conducted by knowledgeable experts could provide the appropriate justification. However, no such review has taken place. At the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that Canada’s investments in science and technology have produced poor results and are a “significant problem for our country.” Given the lack of expert assessment, however, his comments are without merit: They represent his unscientific opinion, and nothing more. Scientists the world over are lamenting what is happening to Canada’s scientific community.

Canadian governments once understood that good policy is informed by science. In 1988, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives commissioned independent experts to conduct a review of EC’s ozone program. The resulting report (“Measuring the Impacts of Environment Canada’s R&D: Case Study: Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Research,” 1998) stated that for every dollar spent on the program, Canadians received almost $13 in benefits to their health, environment, and economy. Health benefits included the avoidance of over 57,000 cases of skin cancer, 30,000 cases of cataracts, and 625 deaths in Canada over a 60-year period. Unfortunately, the Harper Conservatives have sought to dismantle what the Progressive Conservatives saw worthy of support.

What’s particularly concerning is that the cuts to Canada’s environmental-monitoring programs are not about money. PEARL costs $1.5 million per year to operate, and EC’s ozone program likely costs about $1 million per year. Compare these costs with those of the government’s flagship programs: The budget for purchasing and servicing one F-35 fighter jet ($246 million, based on calculations from numbers given here) would power PEARL half way into the next century. The budget for new prisons ($9.5 billion) might have seen PEARL into the next ice age. The cost of gazebos and other perks that were built for Muskoka in the run-up to the G8 meeting of 2010 ($50 million) would have supported EC’s ozone program for the next 50 years. The budget for the War of 1812 celebrations ($28 million) could have supported either program for decades.

Related: Obstinate Harper Fuels Pipeline Opposition

If money is not the issue, then why is the Canadian government so bent on making cuts to environmental spending? Harper made this clear last year during a trip to the Arctic, when he opined that environmental concerns cannot be allowed to stand in the way of economic development. This is a dangerous attitude. The economy doesn’t exist independent of the environment. A 1990 report from the United Steelworkers explains it best: “The real choice is not jobs or environment. It’s both or neither. What kind of jobs will be possible in a world of depleted resources, poisoned water and foul air, a world where ozone depletion and greenhouse warming make it difficult even to survive?”

Unfortunately, the government has systematically reduced scrutiny of the impacts of its economic and environmental policies by eliminating or crippling important research programs like PEARL. The widespread muzzling of EC scientists has further removed expert opinions from the debate. Clearly, the government cannot protect the future health and safety of Canadians and Canada’s economic viability without reliable information about environmental change. Yet, that is exactly what it is trying to do. It is the triumph of ideology over reason.

Photo 1 courtesy of Hermann Berg; Photo 2 courtesy of Tobias Kerzenmacher.

via themarknews.com

Op-ed piece from The Mark by Prof. T. Duck of Dalhousie. We continue to ask the question of why funding has been cut for Arctic ozone research when the amount of funding needed to continue this work (per year) is LESS THEN 5% OF RUN-UP COSTS OF THE G8 MEETING IN MUSKOKA (which was actually held 3.5 hours away in Toronto)?

Money, for a change, does not appear to be the issue here.

Why Canadians should care about the closure of the PEARL Observatory. #CANDAC @westernu @lfpress @aguscipolicy @saveec @createarcticsci

Why Canadians should care about the closure of the PEARL Observatory

Yesterday we announced the closure of the Polar Environment Research Laboratory (PEARL) located in the high Arctic at Eureka, Nunavut. And what should disturb Canadians about this news has nothing to do with scientific entitlement, belief or disbelief in climate change or signalling our failure as a nation to be able to honour international agreements and commitments. We should be disturbed by the rejection of the notion of our sovereignty by the current Government. Sovereignty has been a cornerstone of the Canadian identify for hundreds of years. Sovereignty is a part of the Canadian mystique, our world-renown ability to stickhandle through difficult situations and find common ground and compromise in chaos.
The current Government has in recent months, in addition to closing the PEARL facility, attempted to stop all ozone research by Environment Canada as well as successfully eliminated the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS). This well-coordinated attack on atmospheric science has two major implications for our sovereignty.

1. Developing policy. Traditionally when governments are trying to determine future policy actions they need information on which to base their decisions. For instance, how will changing climate affect Canadian agriculture? What affect will future climate changes have on air quality? If the Government is successful and rids itself of scientists investigating climate and weather issues, and further is successful in cutting support to University researchers, where is it going to get its information to make decisions? If you are in business and want to make a plan should you rely on your competitors (e.g. other nations) to provide the best possible advice to benefit you?
2. Health of citizens. Another important function of government is risk assessment. For instance, when the Antarctic Ozone Hole was discovered and was found to be growing its affects on humans was felt in New Zealand. It was critical for their government to be informed and know what was happening locally. Last winter measurements from the PEARL Observatory were a critical part of showing the first significant Arctic ozone losses that were at a level of the Antarctic Ozone Hole. We feel it is a responsibility of the Government to monitor atmospheric air quality so they have the knowledge necessary to bring forward policies protecting the health of Canadians. Do we want to rely on getting this information from other nations?

For a Government that has made mention many times about sovereignty, particularly in the context of the Arctic, the closure of the PEARL observatory is particularly troubling. So are we to accept the plan is to just “develop” the Arctic and let’s not bother with any informed thought on how we go about doing that? That logic was prevalent in the 19th century expansion across North America, but we learned some hard lessons from that experience we should not forget. The Government’s logic that Canada’s loss of an existing high Arctic research facility is compensated for by a plan to possibly build a facility in 2017 located 1600 km to the South is unacceptable (FYI 1600 km is about the distance from Toronto to Atlanta, Georgia!).
If your Canada includes homegrown scientific research into the environment to allow informed policy decisions and you want Canada to keep a scientific presence in the high Arctic to protect our sovereignty you can write to your MP, the Prime Minister and Minister Kent and let them know how you feel about the closure of the PEARL facility. Contact information is given at the end of this article.

Further Information:

• Dennis Bevington, MP from Western Arctic, NT, questions the Government about the closure of PEARL:

• Read the CANDAC closure notice.
• See the Save PEARL Facebook page.
• Read some facts about CFCAS.. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences was the only funding available in Canada specifically for scientific investigations of climate and weather. The Harper Government chose to eliminate this program, thus making it difficult for weather and climate research to find support, as existing opportunities are either targeted for specific areas or have as a substantial part of their criteria, revenue generation.
• Article about sovereignty and its role in Canadian history.
• See an example of the Government’s commitment to development in the Arctic.

Contact Information to Let Your Voice be Heard

You can locate your MP’s information at: http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html. Letters mailed to the following addresses in Canada do not require postage.

The Prime Minister address: Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Fax: 613–941–6900, E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

Enviroment Minister Kent can be reached at: The Honourable Peter Kent
Minister of the Environment, Member of Parliament for Thornhill (Ontario), Les Terrasses de la Chaudière, 10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor, Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3
Tel.: 819–997–1441, Fax: 819–953–0279, Email: Minister@ec.gc.ca

#CBCNews High Arctic research station forced to close

via cbc.ca

Sadly today marks the official announcement of the closure of Canada's PEARL Observatory. We have been unable to secure funding, primarily because we no longer have any government atmospheric or climate programs we can apply to for funds. The new observatory promised for 2017 is 1300 km to the south and is not in the high Arctic. Being in this location was important for being able to take measurements last spring during the largest Arctic ozone hole yet observed.

@globejunius: Saving Canada’s Arctic atmospheric lab - The Globe and Mail

On Sunday, for the first time in four months, the sun rose over Eureka on Ellesmere Island, 10 degrees from the North Pole. The sun's return brings rays that break up ozone, and the Arctic climate and atmosphere are changing every year.

But we are about to lose our main source of knowledge about these intricate, and life-altering, processes, because our northernmost environmental research laboratory, known as PEARL, is in jeopardy. If Canada is serious about scientific discovery, and its status as an Arctic nation, the lab must be saved.

More related to this story

• If we are a northern nation, support our northern peoples


• Don’t accentuate the positive on climate change


• Drawing lines in the Arctic ice

Follow The Globe editorial board on twitter

@globejunius

No one questions the lab's merit. Its instruments have collected Arctic surface and atmospheric data used by the world's major research organizations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Office. The lab houses Canada's northernmost high-speed Internet connection, allowing for rapid dissemination of results. Research done at the lab has already found, for instance, that water evaporation in the Arctic is far more complicated than had been thought. The lab is the only one of its kind in the high Arctic, and has produced 37 refereed publications and trained over 50 young scientists in 10 years.

PEARL is in trouble because one of its main sources of funding, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, has lost federal support and is slated to wind down this year. A few of its instruments could, in theory, be moved, but our scientific heritage would be lost. As with the demise of the long-form census, data will no longer be comparable over long time-periods, making the data already collected less valuable.

Atmospheric research is important for all of Canada, but northerners are particularly vulnerable. “It's in the Canadian High Arctic where the global warming process is proceeding most rapidly,” says Richard Peltier, professor of physics at the University of Toronto. In addition, pollution from the south (and from the North itself, as it industrializes) leads to ozone loss and threatens the North's more fragile ecosystems and populations.

“How else would we expect to learn about the Arctic, if we don't do it ourselves?” asks James Drummond, professor of physics at Dalhousie University and principal investigator at PEARL. It's a challenge that puts the question of Canadian sovereignty in high relief, and deserves a response from our elected officials.

via theglobeandmail.com

Thanks to the Globe and Mail for helping to inform Canadians of our government’s choice to abandon Canada’s northern-most lab for studying the atmosphere from the surface to the edge of space. The doomsday clock is almost at midnight, but we are hoping the lab and the important time series of atmospheric measurements we have obtained can be saved.