One of the biggest scientific projects to ever examine the Arctic Ocean is getting $20 million from the federal government, officials announced Wednesday in Winnipeg.

The Circumpolar Flaw Lead System study, expected to cost $40 million, will involve 200 scientists from 16 countries who will spend 15 months on a boat in the Arctic. They will study flaw lead systems, or areas of open water in sea ice.

The systems, which occur where the central Arctic ice pack is moving away from coastal ice, are considered early indicators of what the Arctic will look like in the future.

"We're studying these flaw leads because they give us a very good indication of how we expect the Artic to change as we move into an environment when we have less and less ice in those areas," said Dave Barber, a University of Manitoba professor leading the project. 

"The study looks at all the scientific information from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere in the physical world and everything from viruses to whales in the biological world, and these flaw leads provide us with … an early indication as to what we can expect the effects of climate change to be."

Manitoba's senior cabinet minister, Vic Toews, was joined by University of Manitoba scientists for the funding announcement.

"Taking a close look at them will help researchers assess the impacts of global-scale climate change on the environment and on all of us," Toews said.

An additional $5 million for the project will come from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Manitoba government. The remaining money will come from international partners.

"This was the last piece of the funding puzzle that we've been putting together now for two years," said Barber about the federal funding. "Everything is ready to go … we're getting very anxious to get going."

Students on board project

The project will also include a Schools on Board outreach program in which students will travel to the boat in three expeditions in the coming year to take part in the scientists' research. Two groups of students from around the world and one group of Inuit students from the global polar region will make up the expeditions.

"It's very much an adventure," said Barber. "It will be the first time ever that anyone has ever studied one of these flaw leads through the whole winter season. Nobody's ever done this before anywhere on the planet."

The Amundsen, a former Canadian coast guard icebreaker retrofitted for research, will depart from Quebec later in July, with research to begin in October.

The Circumpolar Flaw Lead System study is the largest component of $150 million in federal money dedicated to research in Canada's International Polar Year program.