International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

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IPY 20 07–20 08
at the same Danish Meteorological Institute. It completed
its service on 31 December 1950, 17 years after
the end of IPY-2, by producing a Bibliography of some
2,000 IPY-2 publications, and brief overview of its organization
and implementation (Laursen, 1951).
Despite the efforts of the CPY, neither a special
series nor a uniform template for the IPY-2 publication
was established and each participating nation
presented the results of its program at will in English,
German and/or in French, but also in Russian, Polish,
Norwegian, Danish, Italian, Spanish, Finnish and
Portuguese (Laursen, 1951; Elzinga, 2009, 2010b).
Overall, IPY-2 is a story of great perseverance in the
time of world economic depression and political
uncertainty. It was completed thanks in large part
to the generosity of a few outside donors, such
as the International Association of Meteorology,
International Association of Terrestrial Magnetism and
Electricity, Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller
Foundation (Elzinga, 2009; Laursen, 1982), despite
global economic crisis and the resulting lack of muchneeded
funding in many nations like Canada, U.K. and
the U.S.A.
For whatever reasons, the post-1933 process
suffered from repeated delays in the processing
and publication of the data collected. La Cour once
estimated that it would take five years to ensure the
legacy of IPY-2 (Elzinga, 2009). But six years went
by without any international meeting or major
presentation, until World War II broke out in 1939 and
buried any further hopes. By the time the Liquidation
Commission was established in 1946 to complete the
unfinished tasks of IPY-2, it was too late to re-energize
the polar science community. Perhaps, that feeling of
unfinished mission contributed to a new drive for the
‘third’ IPY and to cutting the time between the two
initiatives from 50 to 25 years. It also explained why the
IGY planners were so keen in promoting the results of
IPY-2 in publications related to their venture 25 years
later (Bartels, 1959; Beynon, 1959; Brooks, 1959; Paton,
1959; Vestine and Nagata, 1959).
International Geophysical Year/IGY:
1957–1958
Of all IPY initiatives, the third IPY, which eventually
became the International Geophysical Year 1957–
1958, due to its global geographic scope, has the bestdocumented
chronology and the least controversial
origination story. The idea of holding a new polar
year in response to recent progress in polar science
and technology was put forward on 5 April 1950 by
Lloyd Berkner (1905–1967), ionospheric physicist and
then executive secretary of the U.S. Research and
Development Board. 23 He did so at a small dinner
party that honored visiting British geophysicist
Sydney Chapman (1888–1970) at James van Allen’s
private house near Washington, D.C. (Chapman, 1953;
Good, 2010; Jones, 1959; Korsmo, 2007, 2009). In that
first deliberation, Chapman observed that the years
1957–1958 would correspond with the maximum of
solar activity; so, a date was chosen to mark a 25-year
interval since IPY-2.
People who proposed the idea for a new polar year
were well positioned in the science hierarchy 24 ; many
of them also shared personal memories of the IPY-2
era. Several other veterans of IPY-2 became soon active
in the planning and implementation of IGY. 25 The
proposal for the ‘third polar year’ was advanced with
a remarkable speed. A month later, in May 1950, the
scientific aspects of the new initiative were discussed
at a meeting at the Naval Rocket Station at Inyokern,
China Lake, in California (Nicolet, 1982; Korsmo, 2007)
and in July 1950 it was endorsed by the international
conference on the Physics of the Ionosphere held at
the Pennsylvania State College (Penn State), also in the
U.S. In September 1950, Berkner and Chapman formally
brought their proposal for the new polar year to the
Mixed Commission on the Ionosphere of ICSU, a body
comprising representatives from the International
Union for Scientific Radio (URSI), International
Astronomical Union (IAU) and the International Union
for Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). The Commission
endorsed the idea and forwarded it to the respective
Unions; all approved it. 26 The proposal was then
considered by the Bureau (officers) of ICSU in May 1951
and was referred to the ICSU Executive Board. A small
‘preparatory committee’ was charged to supervise the
process. A large segment of the international science
community was thus quickly made aware of the plans