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International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

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need to be included and that other organizations,<br />

beyond <strong>WMO</strong>, IOC and ICSU should be involved. It was<br />

recognized that the balance of governmental (<strong>WMO</strong>)<br />

and non-governmental (ICSU) organizations would<br />

be powerful and beneficial to the overall success of<br />

IPY, but it was felt that rules of procedure should be<br />

kept light and open. PG members pointed out that<br />

as a governmental organization, <strong>WMO</strong> would be able<br />

to contribute resources to support an IPY secretariat<br />

and that <strong>WMO</strong> co-sponsorship of IPY would assist<br />

active participation by nations such as China and most<br />

South American nations. In the end, the PG agreed to a<br />

modified version of the <strong>WMO</strong> proposal for cooperation<br />

and adopted a declaration that it was committed to<br />

develop relationships with organizations with defined<br />

interests in polar regions.<br />

Updates were provided by representatives of two<br />

ICSU <strong>International</strong> Scientific Unions: the <strong>International</strong><br />

Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) regarding<br />

<strong>International</strong> <strong>Year</strong> of Planet Earth (IYPE) and the<br />

<strong>International</strong> Union of Geodesy and Geophysics<br />

(IUGG) on the Electronic Geophysical <strong>Year</strong> (eGY).<br />

The IYPE was to focus on capacity building and it<br />

was felt that IPY could build on the success of the<br />

IYPE by focusing on the role of the polar regions in<br />

the “planetary machinery”. It was also recognized<br />

that there was scope to establish a Joint Observing<br />

Programme among the eGY, IHY and IPY and indeed<br />

both the e-GY and IHY eventually contributed to IPY<br />

<strong>2007–2008</strong> as cluster programs. In addition, it was felt<br />

that there were good grounds for closer links with<br />

SCAR and IASC as these ICSU-affiliated organizations<br />

could have specific roles in science steering groups or<br />

as science coordinators themselves. The need for IPY<br />

to leave a legacy of improved cooperation, data access<br />

and systems was highlighted, and the prospective IPY<br />

logo was discussed.<br />

For the rest of the meeting, PG members divided<br />

into three groups to review some 135 ‘research ideas’<br />

submitted for future IPY projects from individual scientists,<br />

research institutions, national and international<br />

teams. It was agreed that the ideas be initially clustered<br />

using the overarching science themes (Change,<br />

Decode, Explore), the four geographic descriptors<br />

(Arctic, Antarctic, Bipolar, Global) and nine broad disciplinary<br />

classifications. The pool of over 130 ‘research<br />

ideas,’ though with certain overlap, clearly indicated<br />

research priorities of the polar science community, as<br />

the two strongest clusters were the role of polar processes<br />

in global climate and weather, and biodiversity<br />

and change in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.<br />

There proved to be insufficient time to complete the<br />

analysis of all of the submitted ideas, so the group decided<br />

to work by e-mail over the next several weeks to<br />

develop the guiding principles, management strategy<br />

and research themes to be summarized into a draft<br />

plan for consideration by the ICSU Executive Board in<br />

February 2004. The poor response from social sciences<br />

was noted as a special concern. Gérard Duhaime,<br />

social scientist on the PG, felt this was due to communicating<br />

with the wrong partners, i.e. associations and<br />

ICSU Scientific Unions (which were dominated by non<br />

social science disciplines), the need to better inform<br />

social scientists about the “new” inclusive nature of<br />

IPY <strong>2007–2008</strong> (Chapter 1.4) and to demonstrate that<br />

this <strong>Polar</strong> <strong>Year</strong> was genuinely interested in social sciences,<br />

social issues and polar residents, including indigenous<br />

peoples.<br />

It was proposed that submission of further ideas<br />

for IPY activities be encouraged with a deadline of 12<br />

March 2004, so that they might be considered at the<br />

next PG meeting. It was further decided that a draft<br />

Science Outline be developed by March 2004 based on<br />

those ideas for future IPY projects. That draft Science<br />

Outline should be presented to the community for<br />

comment at the Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW,<br />

April 2004), at the 5th <strong>International</strong> Congress of Arctic<br />

Social Sciences (ICASS-5) of the <strong>International</strong> Arctic<br />

Social Sciences Association (May 2004) and at the<br />

SCAR open science conference (July 2004).<br />

ICSU and <strong>WMO</strong> Consider Closer Cooperation:<br />

January 2004<br />

The key interaction between the ICSU, <strong>WMO</strong> and<br />

the Russian teams took place 22–23 January 2004 in<br />

St. Petersburg at the meeting titled “Cooperation for<br />

the <strong>International</strong> <strong>Polar</strong> <strong>Year</strong> <strong>2007–2008</strong>”; it was hosted<br />

by Roshydromet and the Russian Academy of Sciences<br />

at the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute,<br />

AARI (ICSU PG, 2004b:23–25; Electronnyi bulleten, 2004).<br />

Over 40 scientists and polar agency representatives<br />

from ICSU, <strong>WMO</strong>, SCAR, IASC, Arctic Council and the<br />

European Commission (EC) participated, including<br />

Rapley and Bell for ICSU PG, Sarukhanian for <strong>WMO</strong>,<br />

P l a n n I n g a n d I m P l e m e n t I n g I P Y 2 0 0 7–2 0 0 8 53

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