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EUREKA
A High Arctic research laboratory will close due to lack of funding.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), located at latitude 80 degrees north about 15 kilometres from Eureka, will close April 30 due to lack of funding, said James Drummond, a Dalhousie University researcher and principal investigator for PEARL.

He said the station needs about $1.5 million to run the laboratory but this year it got approximately $200,000 in funding from the federal government.

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and the International Polar Year Program have both stopped funding the laboratory, said Drummond.

"That's the reason we are very short of funds because there are no other programs we can apply to for funding to keep the station running," he said.

The laboratory has one permanent technician and the occasional groups of six to 12 people going up there to perform special experiments. Drummond said at least six people are at the laboratory right now.

"We hope to use it for short-term projects but that depends on getting the funding to do them," said Drummond.

The building will remain as it belongs to Environment Canada but will probably enter care and maintenance he added.

Some equipment will be brought down south while other pieces will be left in care and maintenance, said Drummond.

A team is currently on Ellesmere Island doing the last set of measurements on ozone before it closes, he added.

"We lose a lot of research-level measurements on the ozone system," said Drummond. "We lose measurements on air quality and we lose measurements on climate and in particular, the lab operated year-round, so we lose an awful lot of information in the polar night, which we don't get in other ways."

The laboratory opened in 2005 and Drummond said they are "very disappointed" with the announcement.

"There is a lot of very good science being done and a lot of research that's going to have to stop because we don't have the facility any more," he said.

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