International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

Fig. 1.2-1. Report
on the forthcoming
activities associated
with the ‘Centenary of
the First International
Polar Year (March
1981.
(Courtesy Mike Baker)
30
IPY 20 07–20 08
addresses were given at the Scott Polar Research
Institute in Cambridge by Canadian geophysicist
George D. Garland and Russian geologist Vladimir V.
Beloussov (Garland, 1982; Beloussov 1982). Several
other anniversary addresses were delivered at major
conferences and special symposia during 1982–1984
(e.g. Beynon, 1983) and a great number of historical
overviews of IPY-1, IPY-2 and IGY were published
(Baker, 1982; Barr, 1985; Nicolet, 1984), including a
special issue of the WMO Bulletin (Corby, 1982; Laursen,
1982; Nicolet, 1982), but no new research or public
projects were launched.
At a small event that Nicolet organized in Brussels
in 1987 to commemorate the anniversaries of the
three IPYs, the idea of when, why and the possibility
of another “IPY” was discussed among the former
members of the IGY Secretariat, Nicolet, F.W.G. (Mike)
Baker and Phil Mange, but none of the participants
took any action since they thought it was still a bit
premature (F.W.G. Baker, pers. comm., January 2010).
Thus the momentum to use the 25th anniversary of
IGY and the 100th anniversary of IPY-1 to launch the
‘fourth’ IPY slipped away.
1997–2000: IGY 50th Anniversary Is
Approaching
The next calls for a new IPY came in the late 1990s
when the 50th anniversary of IGY was on the horizon. In
1997 on the 40th anniversary of IGY, Chris Rapley, then
Executive Director of the International Geosphere-
Biosphere Programme (IGBP) in Stockholm, reportedly
sent a letter to the ICSU Secretariat arguing for a
major celebration event to be organized by the 50th
anniversary of IGY in 2007. According to Rapley’s
account, he was informed that his idea was forwarded
to several International Unions under ICSU but the
proposal was considered a ‘step too far.’ 2 Everybody
was suffering from ‘initiative fatigue’ and there was no
enthusiasm for another major venture within
the ICSU system (Chris Rapley, interview,
3 March, 2008). The latter may be due to
the successful proliferation of many large
international programs in the 1980s and 1990s,
including IGBP itself, so that many science
groups and researchers felt that they needed
a breather.
Nonetheless, some unions were more open
to the idea than others. At the 22nd General
Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy
and Geophysics (IUGG) 18–30 July, 1999, one
of its constituent groups, the International
Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy
(IAGA) adopted a resolution recommending
the preparation of ‘collaborative programs […]
during the period 2003 to 2008 to mark the 50th
anniversary of the IGY and to act as a springboard
for future research’ (IAGA 1999 – Fig. 1.2-2). Both
IAGA and IUGG were active participants in IGY;
evidently, their members had a strong feeling
about its forthcoming 50th anniversary. The
IAGA/IUGG nexus became a crucial link that
eventually led to the International Heliophysical
Year (IHY) planning a few years later (see below).
Another line of correspondence related to
the ‘next’ IPY emerged in the late 1990s at the
IASC Secretariat in Oslo (Chapter 1.4). Leonard