International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

1.1 From IPY-1 to IGY: Early Lessons
in Making Global Science
Lead Author:
Igor Krupnik
Contributing Authors:
F.W.G. (Mike) Baker, Rip Bulkeley, Fae Korsmo and Cornelia Lüdecke
Reviewers:
Paul Cutler, David Hik, Julia Lajus and Sverker Sörlin
This chapter is as a historical introduction to
the main story of IPY 2007–2008; it provides
short overviews of the origination and
implementation of the three preceding
International Polar Years in 1882–1883, 1932–1933
and 1957–1958. Such broad historical backdrop is
essential to understand why the international science
community was mobilized three times for large transdisciplinary
initiatives in the Earth’s polar regions prior
to IPY 2007–2008 and, specifically, to elucidate the
factors that were critical in their successful planning
and implementation.
Each of the previous IPY initiatives generated
massive historiography. 1 Nevertheless, for the first
time, research in the history of polar science was
included as a bona fide component in IPY 2007–2008.
It generated four international scholarly projects (IPY
nos. 10, 27, 100, 135), two large conferences, five polar
history workshops organized by the SCAR Action
Group on the History of Antarctic Research (www.scar.
org/about/history), 2 numerous overview papers and
several summary volumes (Andreev et al., 2007; Barr,
2008; Barr and Lüdecke, 2010; Headland, 2009; Launius
et al., 2010). New studies unraveled many critical
aspects of the early IPYs, including its driving forces,
personal motives of individual players, scholarly
achievements, geopolitical and diplomatic factors
affecting national participation. They also revealed
how the previous IPYs were the products of the science
and global politics of the day.
The present chapter addresses the step-by-step
logistics of the origination, endorsement, planning
and implementation of three earlier IPYs. Despite
many differences, a remarkably consistent set of
practical actions was needed to move each successive
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IPY from its first discussions to the drawing board
to international endorsements to governmentalfunded
operations and, finally, to the processing of
the data collected, and the publication of its results.
These early lessons in ‘making global science’ thus
contribute a crucial prologue to our understanding of
how the fourth IPY 2007–2008 was born and what it
has achieved.
First IPY: 1882 –1883
The canonical story of the origination of the First
IPY (IPY-1) dates it to 1875 and ties it to a charismatic
officer of the Austro-Hungarian Navy – Lieutenant Carl
(Karl) 3 Weyprecht (1838–1881). But, the first person to
propose the idea that the scientific exploration of polar
regions should be based on international cooperation
was Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury of the
U.S. Navy (1806–1873), the director of the U.S. Naval
Observatory in Washington, D.C. Maury had been the
instigator and coordinator of a scientific network for
the collection of wind and current data from ships, and
the subsequent publication and interpretation of data
that was adopted internationally in 1853 (Baker, 1982b;
Rothenberg, 2009). A key element of his plan, prepared
in 1860–1861 and later published in three languages
(Maury, 1862), was that the data for Antarctica would
be collected through such cooperative work and then
studied at meteorological centers in Britain, France
and the Netherlands (Baker, 1982b; Bulkeley, 2010). 4
Maury’s idea of internationally coordinated polar
research had been re-launched 15 years later by a
new champion, Carl Weyprecht, this time focused
primarily on the Arctic. In January 1875, Weyprecht
unveiled his proposal for a coordinated international
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