LAWRENCE, Kan. – The University of Kansas will be home to a center studying the melting of polar ice caps, financed by the largest federal grant a Kansas university has ever received, officials said Monday.

The National Science Foundation has awarded the university almost $19 million to finance operations at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets over the next five years. Its research will involve NASA and more than 40 scientists from nine other universities, including the University of Maine.

The center hopes to help scientists better understand climate change, how melting ice caps affect sea levels and how changing sea levels will affect nations’ populations and economies.

About 25 scientists and researchers will work in new offices on the Kansas campus. The other scientists involved with the center’s research will do their work at nine other institutions, including the University of Maine.