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June 29, 2006 The 125 Year Legacy of the International Polar Yearby Mark McCaffrey |
Introduction The connection between polar regions and societies around the world is increasingly part of our mainstream culture. Magazine articles, books, and movies have made common knowledge of topics such as the epic annual migration of Emperor Penguins, or how the accelerated melting of glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula will result in rising sea levels that will eventually impact the billions of people who live near coastlines. We are becoming more aware of how the melting of summer sea ice in the Arctic is impacting the lifestyle of native peoples and the habitats of the seals and polar bears they hunt. There is increased understanding that pollution from Europe and North America is entering the food chain in the Arctic. We hear how melting of permafrost in Polar Regions not only causes roads to buckle and foundations to collapse, but releases substantial amounts of methane into the atmosphere, further fueling the greenhouse effect. It is clear from surveys of public attitudes about climate change from people around the world that there is widespread acceptance and concern that human activities are changing the climate system through global warming. But the surveys also reveal a lack of depth of understanding and misconceptions about how scientists know what they know and what remains unknown about the Earth's complex environmental and climate systems. The upcoming International Polar Year, which begins in March 2007 and runs through March 2009, will provide a timely and detailed look at the Polar Regions and their global connections through a wide range of scientific studies and related activities. It will also be a unique opportunity for people around the world to see the how the science is conducted, and how scientists collect data, study causes and effects, and weigh uncertainties. The Original International YearOver 125 years ago, when Austrian explorer and naval officer Lt. Karl Weyprecht called for an international, yearlong intensive effort to study the Polar Regions, he probably never imagined that his model for international collaboration would become so wildly popular. A quick Google search on the term "international year" reveals a plethora of global events that study or highlight specific issues over the span of a year: the International Year of Microcredit (2005), the International Year of Volunteers (2001), the International Year of Older Persons (1999), the International Year of Sport and Physical Education (2005). There are several upcoming science-oriented years as well: the International Year of Coral Reefs (2008), the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) and the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY), both in 2007, and the International Year of Planet Earth in 2008.
IPY research will build on existing programs and funds, but several nations will implement substantial new research funding and enhanced logistical support during IPY. One of the IPY's strongest scientific contributions will arise from a robust effort to understand geophysical, biological, and even social linkages between northern and southern Polar Regions and the importance of polar science to global processes and issues. The data generated through IPY research efforts will build on previous research and include observations from Arctic indigenous people, ice cores spanning hundreds of thousands of years of climate history, satellite and other remote sensing platforms measuring seasonal changes and mass balance of sea ice, snow coverage, and ice caps, and numerous other low- and high-tech tools. IPY will offer unprecedented data management and communication challenges and opportunities, strengthening existing and building new networks and relationships within the science research community. IPY research and activities also have the potential to impact public perception of science through a wide range of films, television series, museum exhibitions, and regular broadcast coverage, as well as local and regional events and efforts to communicate with and engage broad, diverse audiences. A Programme Office in Cambridge, UK, working in consort with the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee, manages IPY at the international level. Projects are primarily funded through national programs. Building on the Legacy
While the ocean science community had begun to engage in international cooperation several decades previously, Weyprecht recognized the importance of a focused, intensive effort over at least a full annual cycle since seasonal changes are extreme and challenging to measure in polar regions. The first IPY involved 700 men from eleven nations who, between 1881 and 1884, established fourteen principal and thirteen auxiliary research stations, primarily in the Arctic. Weyprecht himself died of tuberculosis in 1881 before he was able to see his vision fulfilled, but the scientific progress made during the first IPY led fifty years later to the Second IPY in 1932-1933. Occurring during a global economic depression, and between world wars and shortly after the invention of rocketry, the primary focus of the second IPY was on meteorology, magnetism, auroras, and radio science, leading to an early understanding of the role of the ionosphere in the Earth system.
Now, nearly fifty years later, with the world population doubled since IGY, the newest International Polar Year will build on the legacy of international cooperation and collaboration to study the complexities of the Earth system, using state-of-the art scientific instruments and communication technology to convey to the world the status and changes of polar regions and their role in the global system. In the few generations between Lt. Weyprecht's vision and the present, the world has changed in significant ways, and IPY has made significant contributions to improving our understanding and appreciation of the complexities of the Earth system. The first IPY transformed exploration for the sake of national glory into international cooperative science. IPY 4 has the potential to transcend national complacency and foster a new chapter of international cooperative action to respond to the knowledge gained about polar science and its global impact. *** The author of this article, Mark S. McCaffrey, is science communications specialist with CIRES' Education Outreach Program. ReferencesInternational Council for Science. A Framework for the International Polar Year 2007-2008. Produced by the ICSU IPY 2007-2008 Planning Group, 2004. Korsmo, F.L. "Shaping Up Planet Earth: The International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) and Communicating Science Through Print and Film Media." Science Communication 26, no. 2 (2004): 162-87. National Research Council. A Vision for the International Polar Year 2007-2008. National Academies of Science, Washington, DC, 2004. http://fermat.nap.edu/books/0309092124/html/R1.html Pfirman, S., R. Bell, M. Turrin, and P. Maru. "Bridging The Poles: Education Linked With Research. A Report on the Workshop, 23-25 June 2004, Washington, DC." Barnard College and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, NY, 2005. |
This article was first published in bridges, the Office of Science & Technology’s (OST) Publication on S&T Policy. It appeared in bridges vol 10, June 2006. bridges is a free online English language magazine featuring a wide range of articles relating to science, technology, and education policy in the US, Canada, and Europe. To learn more about bridges, please visit http://bridges.ostina.org. |
And then there is the International Polar Year 2007-2008, or IPY, which will be the fourth such year focused on Polar Regions and their global connections. The upcoming IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually a two-year "Year," covering two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009. It will involve over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological, and social research topics including:
The world has changed a great deal since Lt. Weyprecht, a veteran Arctic explorer who co-led the 1872-1874 expedition that discovered Franz Josef Land, called for the intensive, yearlong international collaboration and cooperative scientific research that led to the first IPY in 1882-1883. The human population has more than quadrupled, the invention of alternating current electricity and the internal combustion engine have transformed societies and altered the Earth system, and international scientific collaboration has achieved massive breakthroughs in scientific understanding.
Then in 1957-1958, the Third International Polar Year, expanded into the International Geophysical Year (IGY), served as the impetus for Sputnik and the other Earth-orbiting observation satellites. This led to discoveries such as the Van Allen radiation belts and insights into the role of greenhouse gases in the climate system and the past occurrence of abrupt shifts in the environment. During IGY, in the middle of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, 12 nations maintained 65 stations in Antarctica; a few years later the Antarctica Treaty was signed, protecting the sixth continent for scientific, non-military research. IGY also spurred the development of a series of science education films and curricular materials in the United States that were developed through the National Academy of Sciences.