International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

Fig. 1.4-6. Front page
of the AOSB science
proposal for IPY
2007–2008 (AOSB
Newsletter, 2003, July,
pp. 3-11)
76
IPY 20 07–20 08
preparation of IPY was also taken into account in the
EPB process of developing a European Polar Consortium
through the use of the FP6 ERA NET (6th European
Framework Program), with the aim of coordinating
and funding a network for European Polar activities
during the IPY era and beyond.
EPB participated in the IPY Open Forum in Paris on
31 March, 2004, represented by Gérard Jugie, Chair,
and Paul Egerton, Executive Director. All EPB Chairs
and vice-Chairs during the early planning period for
IPY were actively engaged in the IPY process either as
members of the ICSU Planning Group (Chris Rapley, Olav
Orheim, Hanne Petersen), ICSU-WMO Joint Committee
(Chris Rapley and Jerónimo López-Martínez) or via
their respective national IPY committees (Jörn Thiede,
Gérard Jugie, Anders Karlqvist, Carlo Alberto Ricci, Jan
Stel and Olav Orheim, among others – Fig. 1.4-5).
EPB members reviewed the progress in the
preparation of IPY science program at the plenary
meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland during the 2004
ASSW (23 April, 2004) and at the SCAR Open science
meeting in Bremen, Germany (26–28 July, 2004). The
EPB continued promoting the coordination of the
European participation in IPY and in polar research,
in general, after the establishment of the IPY Joint
Committee and the IPO in 2004.
Arctic Ocean Studies Board (AOSB)
Sara Bowden
The Arctic Ocean Sciences Board, during its April
2002 meeting in Groningen, The Netherlands, received
a report from Leonard Johnson of the University
of Alaska Fairbanks with the concept of an ‘International
Polar Year’ beginning in 2007 (Chapter 1.2).
The Board expressed its great interest to the new IPY
proposal, which was acknowledged in the AOSB 2002
meeting report along with an article that appeared in
the 2002 AOSB Newsletter (Johnson, 2002).
Between the 2002 and 2003 meetings of the AOSB,
the IPY concept began to take hold, with several
member countries considering possible IPY projects.
Prior to the 2003 AOSB meeting in March 2003, Chris
Rapley and Paul Egerton from the European Polar
Board visited the AOSB secretariat at the U.S. National
Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. to discuss the
scope, timing and organization of IPY 2007–2008 and
the role of Arctic Ocean studies in IPY. At the same
time, the International Arctic Science Committee
(IASC) asked the AOSB to participate in the Second
International Conference on Arctic Research Planning
(ICARP II) process, so that at the March 2003 AOSB
meeting in Kiruna, Sweden, both the ICARP II and IPY
proposals were on the table for discussion.
At the 2003 meeting, Rapley informed the AOSB
on the establishment of IPY Planning Group by ICSU
and that a deadline for a first detailed proposal for IPY
was due to ICSU by 12 May, 2003. This time, the idea
of an IPY was enthusiastically supported by the AOSB
members, resulting in a full Board endorsement of
the IPY process. The minutes of the Board’s discussion
reveal that the members believed that the role of the
Arctic Ocean in the climate system should be one of
the central themes in the new IPY. The Board selected
an ad hoc drafting group (made of Robert Dickson,
Leif Anderson, Sergei Priamikov and Thomas Pyle) to
develop a white paper with specific suggestions from
member countries and to provide those suggestions
to the IPY planners by 1 June, 2003.
From March until early June 2003, the drafting group
developed three major AOSB initiatives for IPY. The