Scientists who study climate change from a remote post on Ellesmere Island are planning to shut down their cash-strapped project after the federal government refused to refinance a key climate-change research foundation.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) is located 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole, and collects data on the changing climate of the Far North, where global warming is found to be most intense.

In a conference call this week, PEARL scientists were not discussing their findings but were making plans to shut down the lab, including complicated arrangements to air lift out their equipment.

In its budget last week, Canada's Harper government provided no new money for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmosphere Sciences. The foundation is the country's main fund for scientists studying everything from global climate models, to the melting of polar ice and frequency of Arctic storms, to prairie droughts and shrinking Rocky Mountain glaciers.

For many in the research community, the budget decision merely confirmed the view that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government remain skeptical of climate-change science and hostile to those who provide evidence that aggressive action must be taken to avert catastrophic global warming.