Grant: Major Facilities Access Grants

The Major Facility for which support is required is the pool of scientific equipment attached to the Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen. Mobilized for science in 2003 thanks to a $27.5M grant from the International Fund of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Amundsen has become a major catalyst of the revitalisation of Canadian Arctic science by giving Canadian researchers and their international collaborators unprecedented access to the Arctic Ocean. The extensive $9M pool of scientific equipment attached to the ship is expanding continuously. Up to now the team of 6 technicians in charge of the maintenance and deployment of this equipment was paid from the operation funds of the CFI grant and from contributions from Laval, Manitoba and New Brunswick universities. Given the termination of the CFI funding in 2005 and the pressing need to increase the team of technicians, we request NSERC MFA support for the maintenance of the growing pool of scientific equipment attached to the Amundsen. The first scientific mission of the Amundsen and its equipment was the successful one-year expedition to the Beaufort Sea as part of the NSERC Research Network CASES (Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study). This international arctic mission of unprecedented scope logged 16 500 day-scientists at sea to monitor all aspects of the annual cycle of the arctic marine ecosystem. Over the next 5 years, the Amundsen and its pool of equipment will support several major multidisciplinary programs to study the Canadian sector of the Arctic Ocean, including the field program of the Network of Centres of Excellence ArcticNet funded until 2011 and renewable for a second 7-year cycle; the Arctic component of SOLAS-Canada (Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study); the large-scale Canada-Greenland survey of Inuit health around Baffin Bay; and several major international programs in the planning for the International Polar Year (2007-2009).