Polar sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate and a massive one-year eco-system study of the Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf will give scientists from around the world a better understanding of this change and the ramifications of that change.

The Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES) will park an icebreaker-turned-laboratory in the sea ice north of Tuktoyaktuk and study everything from the sky to the ocean floor.

Dr. Martin Fortier, research associate at Laval University and CASES scientific coordinator, said there was a need for more data on the Arctic Basin and Shelf.

A proposal from CASES was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. The initial work studied sea ice in the Baffin Bay last year.

Future funding for this larger project was conditional on the group's ability to secure and over-winter a ship in sea ice.

"One of the conditions for us to get the money, was to get the ship," Fortier said. "Now we have that ship."

The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir John Franklin will be retro-fitted to become a floating laboratory that will house some 40 scientists and 35 other researchers working in rotation for a year.

The group sailed the Pierre Radisson into the Northwest Passage study passage last fall, from Sept. 18 to Oct. 14 to begin preliminary studies.

"Everything worked very well and now we are in the midst of planning this major endeavour," Fortier said.

Dr. David Barber from the Centre for Earth Observation Science at the Faculty of the Environment at the University of Manitoba, will be studying the sea ice component of the study. Barber said the change in weather is a reality in the North.

"Climate change is not something that's happening in the future, it's happening right now," Barber said. "It's very real and it's clear what's happening and we need to figure out what the consequences will be."

"This needs to be done right away, because these consequences are profound."

The study will bring together scientists from every province, 11 countries and four space agencies from around the world to study the air, land and sea.

"We have our strengths in Canada, but other countries have their strengths in other areas," Fortier said. "Bringing them all together is the only way to answer these large, global questions.

"It starts at the top of the atmosphere and goes to the bottom of the ocean," Barber said. "It starts at viruses and goes to whales and everything in-between.

"It's important to deal with all the pieces, because the relationship between the pieces is very complicated."

Fortier said the area was chosen because it is a perfect example of arctic geography and also is a very under-studied area.

"It's a major continental shelf, influenced by a major river, which is representative of most of the Canadian Arctic Shelf," Fortier said.

Grades 10 and 11 students from all three coasts will have an opportunity to study aboard the vessel through a program called Schools on Board.

"It will give them an experience in how to participate in this kind of international science," he said.