An Arctic research station that had been crippled by funding cuts, sparking loud protests among scientists, is getting an injection of money to keep it alive for the next five years.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, will receive a $5-million grant over a maximum of five years, the Harper government announced Friday. Six other climate-related and mostly northern research projects will get similar grants.

“My major reaction was relief, since this issue has occupied a lot of my energy for the past year,” says Jim Drummond, PEARL’s principal investigator. “It means that we can keep the instrumentation running and do some science.”

PEARL is Canada’s highest-latitude civilian research station, an important sentry in the High Arctic that focuses on climate, ozone and other atmospheric research. It used to receive funding through the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which was set up by the Liberal government. But the Conservatives stopped funding that foundation, and the money dried up in 2012.

PEARL was forced to shutter instruments that had been making vital, year-round observations of changes in the high north. Many research projects in the Arctic, which is experiencing outsized effects of climate change, operate only during the summer. In 2011, in the middle of the Arctic winter, PEARL researchers made continuous observations of what ended up being the largest ozone depletion event ever recorded in the northern hemisphere.

Scientists criticized the cuts to PEARL; some accused the government of not being interested in basic research in its own backyard.

The station needs $1.5 million to operate continuously. Drummond says the new grant is not enough to keep an operator at the site year-round, but that his team is working to automate some of the instruments.

Drummond says while the grant is good news he would like to see confirmation that the money will not dry up after five years.

“This is a one-time only program, and this research needs to continue into the far future. Climate change is a long-term issue, not a short-term one.”

The new grants, a total of more than $32 million, will be administered through the new Climate Change and Atmospheric Research initiative, which is funded through the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

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