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International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

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100<br />

IPY 20 07–20 08<br />

Box 7 Global launch of IPY <strong>2007–2008</strong>: March 2007<br />

ICSU and <strong>WMO</strong> officially launched IPY <strong>2007–2008</strong> on 1<br />

March 2007 in a morning ceremony at the Palais de la<br />

découverte in Paris, France that was webcast around the<br />

world. The ceremony aimed to reflect and appreciate the<br />

broad set of people and organizations that had contributed<br />

to the initiation and planning of IPY and conveyed the<br />

excitement of the 220 IPY projects and the sheer scale of<br />

the IPY program.<br />

Marie-Lise Chanin of the French Academy of Sciences<br />

chaired the opening session (Fig. 1.5-12), which included<br />

speeches from T. Rosswall, M. Jarraud, D. Carlson, I.<br />

Allison, M. Béland and Jack Guichard from the Palais.<br />

Fig. 1.5-12. Opening of IPY <strong>2007–2008</strong> at the Palais de Découverte,<br />

1 March 2007. Left to right: Marie-Lise Chanin (the French Academy<br />

of Sciences), David Carlson (IPO), Thomas Rosswall (ICSU), Michel<br />

Jarraud (<strong>WMO</strong>), Ian Allison (JC) and Michel Béland (JC).<br />

(Photo: Jerónimo López-Martínez)<br />

Fig. 1.5-13. V. Kotlyakov (JC member and IGY veteran) and Adrienne<br />

Smith, (graduate student at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory<br />

of Columbia University) cutting the “iceberg” cake for the IPY<br />

Opening.<br />

(Photo: Igor Krupnik)<br />

This session was crowned with a joint symbolic cakecutting<br />

by early career scientist Adrienne Smith,<br />

graduate student at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory<br />

of Columbia University 1 and Vladimir Kotlyakov, the<br />

most senior JC member and a participant in IGY 1957–<br />

1958 fifty years ago (Fig. 1.5-13). HSH Prince Albert II of<br />

Monaco gave an opening address to the audience of IPY<br />

activists, journalists, educators and representatives of<br />

science organizations (Fig. 1.5-14).<br />

Rhian Salmon from the IPO then moderated a press<br />

conference. Following this, the ~200 attendees, including<br />

more than 70 members of the Press, browsed small<br />

exhibits featuring individual IPY projects from various<br />

fields, such as Plates and Gates (no. 77), <strong>Polar</strong> Snapshot<br />

from Space (GIIPSY, no. 91), Antarctic Ice Accumulation<br />

and Discharge (ASAID, no. 88), Arctic Modelling and<br />

Observing (DAMOCLES, no. 40), Marine Mammal<br />

Explorations (MEOP, no. 153), and Reindeer Herding and<br />

Climate Change (EALAT, no. 399). The participants had<br />

a chance to discuss IPY in personal interactions with the<br />

team leaders, JC members, JC subcommittee chairs and<br />

representatives from IPY education, art, youth and early<br />

career polar scientists.<br />

Prince Albert II marked the official start of IPY by<br />

launching a global network of science centres and<br />

conducting a live, video-linked demonstration of a loaded<br />

wire pressure melting its way through a block of ice.<br />

Fig. 1.5-14. HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco addressing the IPY<br />

Opening Ceremony, 1 March 2007.<br />

(Photo: Igor Krupnik)<br />

1 As part of her IPY work, Adrienne Smith traveled to both the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica with the AGAP project. She<br />

is working on the study of subglacial lakes in Antarctica and on the grounding line of the Jacobhaven Fjord in Greenland.

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