From Idea to Reality: Planning the International Polar Year 2007-2008
16 Nov 2005 - Interviews, Logistics
Dr David Carlson
© Carlye Calvin / Carlye Calvin
SciencePoles interviewed Dr David Carlson, Director of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 International Programme Office (IPY IPO) on 27 October about the development of plans for the International Polar Year 2007-2008. The interview took place at the IPY-IPO at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge.
Dr Carlson, why 2007-2008 for the next IPY?
Well, of course there is the symbolic value of 50 years having passed since the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58, I don't want to minimize that, but I think that there is also a sense amongst IPY participants that to wait another five years, given the rate of change of ice and ecosystems and everything else, would be to miss a chance. I think there is an urgency to it. "As soon as possible", is the message we hear.
Will the IPY serve as a platform from which to address climate change and its impact on the polar regions and the Earth system, or will it stay clear of politically charged issues?
I don't think we can stay clear. We're at the poles because the poles are changing. We're arguing for funding in many nations based on the urgency of that problem, over other things that those nations might fund. So we're unavoidably in the political process because we're arguing for funding.
But is it an explicit climate change program? No, it is explicitly an exploration of the Polar Regions. However, why are we there? Why is there urgency? Why are we worried about the changes we are seeing? Climate change is clearly a background and I don't think we should shy away from that. If we put this much international effort in, it had better be related to the important issues of the planet and therefore climate change is an unavoidable topic.
The International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957-58 was an outstanding success, characterized by cooperation between nations in the gathering, analyzing and exchange of data. The success of the scientific work paved the way for the Antarctic Treaty of 1961 setting aside territorial claims. What do you expect the legacy of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY) to be?
I think it will have an enormous scientific impact, even comparable to IGY. There are things about the ecosystems of the North and South that we don't know about. There are things about ocean circulation, how it changed in the past and could change again in the future that we don't know. So there is a real discovery mode in IPY. But there will also be the explicit link between the physical and the biological aspects of the planet and the links with human culture and human health. I hope that we are able to develop a real polar community that is not just made up of hard scientists. One that realizes that the people at the poles haven't been sent to another planet, but that their planet is changing underneath them, and that the science community has responded.
If we do that well, not just as oceanographers, or anthropologists, or glaciologists, but as scientists, I think we have a chance to rebuild some connections into society. Science is often regarded as separate, obscure, esoteric, even irrelevant, and I think there is a chance here to show science in all its creativity and technical brilliance, but also in a new kind of relevance.
And the reason I say this is double-edged, because if we are going to justify the huge expenditure of resources and time and energy, based on our addressing a crucial problem, then we are going to be held to account. In three or four years from now, people are going to ask what is going to happen to the Arctic? How fast is it going to happen? What is going to happen to sea levels? When is it going to happen? How much? So I think the bargain that we have today is that the IPY is going to have to provide answers to justify the funding. But I also think that scientists are ready to do that.
How international is the IPY 2007-2008? How many countries have registered expressions of intent?
We are seeing strong efforts by approximately 30 nations, and participation by over 50 at this point. But I expect these figures to rise a little bit by the time we've finished reading all the proposals. The important point is that it's much more than just the traditional polar research nations, and that I think is what is so exciting about IPY.
Do these nations come from across all continents?
Yes, from all six continents. Tropics, developed, less developed, technically advanced, technically developing; it involves a whole variety of partners.
How will IPY research projects and their logistics be coordinated internationally? Will it be centralised?
It will be coordinated. In fact, in the Antarctic, there is a structure for coordination through the treaty nations, Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), and so ships, aircrafts, traverses, and anything that comes in and out of the Antarctic is already coordinated. There is no the equivalent on the Arctic side, but there are discussions both within the terrestrial science and oceanographic communities about the need to do that, partly for coordination, partly to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity, and partly in response to concerns that it's going to be difficult to get all these people and equipment into these places. We hope that those with the field stations and ships will buy into the IPY idea of coordinating with the whole research team, rather than just for their national interest.
Would you say that this coordination is already starting to take form?
Yes, absolutely. For the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), for example, which is not a national, but an international programme, three or four nations are already coordinating logistics and dividing up sectors. I think this is actually easier for the operators. Rather than having ten different scientists coming to them asking for a piece of biological research, if a coordinated programme such as CAML comes forward with their needs, then they know that they are talking to a coordinated group.
What do you expect to be the major scientific themes of the IPY 2007-2008? How broad or narrow will these be? Have they already been decided?
They have not been decided. They are going to emerge from the researchers as they get funded and work together, rather than any Joint Committee dictation of what they should be. It will probably come down to eight or ten major themes. There will certainly be a strong geophysics role: The circulation of the oceans, the interaction of ice, oceans and atmosphere. But in addition, this IPY will have much more biology than the IGY. A big example is the biology of the Southern Ocean. How does it function? Is it bio-limited? How much carbon does it draw down? How is all that related to the ice cover and circulation?
The other distinguishing factor is this huge human health dimension: food security, cultural legacy, resiliency, pollution and health risk. It has all these connections to the social sciences which big science programmes haven't had before - coupling the physical and the social sciences. So in a certain respect this is an experiment.
What proportion of IPY submissions do you expect to make the final round and be selected by the IPY Joint Committee as IPY projects?
IPY is going to endorse around 80% to 85% as long as they meet the standards for international cooperation and timeliness. The real selection is then going to take place at the national funding level, and it is a lot tougher to estimate what proportion will make it through that process.
So the IPY Joint-Committee simply puts its seal of approval on certain projects?
Exactly. In the US, it's what we would call a matchmaker role. It's trying to find the good ideas and put them together as internationally coordinated programs, but not make any funding decisions about the science. That must occur at the national level.
When will the Joint-Committee announce its final selection? What will be the next step for the projects selected?
We hope to make a definitive announcement in March 2006. At that point, many nations will have already allocated funding, so this will be one more international stamp of approval, but in other nations, they will still be making their funding decisions and the Joint-Committee endorsement will help. If you look at the way the Canadians are setting up their process, they explicitly list Joint Committee approval, or that a project meets the standards of international approval, as a criteria for funding.
And what will be the next steps for the Joint-Committee?
For the Joint-Committee, the goal will be to pull out the integrating themes, not just geology, or oceanography, or other atmospheric sciences, but 'the climate system of the North', or 'the integrated understanding of the Southern Ocean ecosystem'. The Joint Committee is going to try to cross hemispheres, cross disciplines, cross from developing to developed nations, and really pull out some integrated themes.
In October, this year, International Council for Science (ICSU) members formally adopted the IPY at their 28th General Assembly, but how did the idea for the IPY 2007-2008 first come up, and how was it turned into reality?
Working scientists who were concerned about polar issues brought forward the idea through their societies and where they found the encouragement they needed to take things further. Very quickly it got in front of the ICSU Executive Board, and the Executive Board said: "Yes, bring us back a plan". That's how the planning group got started and it went relatively fast for an international science bureaucracy.
And ICSU was the natural body to endorse it?
Yes, partly because of their history with the IGY of 1957-58 and partly because the IPY needed the penultimate international science organization behind it.
And what about the role of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)?
WMO, through its climate programme, has polar research underway. So I believe the issue came up with WMO fairly quickly and in parallel to the ICSU plans. Of course, when it became obvious that both ICSU and WMO had parallel plans for IPY, both came together very quickly, adapting their plans and coming together as partners. And again, I think this joining of forces was motivated by the scientists who work in the field.
And of course there is a historical link there, as ICSU and WMO were already partners in the IGY of 1957-58.
Yes, exactly, and what is interesting in that respect is that the IGY 1957-58 started as an IPY, but when WMO came in on it, it broadened into an IGY. This made for a bit of a rocky partnership, but this time round they both had the Polar Regions as their focus, which makes for a better and stronger working relationship.
How will the IPY go about facilitating the sharing of data, information and results amongst the scientific community?
I think we have a very interesting challenge there. Thanks to IGY we have an infrastructure of what I would call the geophysical data centres. But where are the equivalent sea ice, glaciology and the atmospheric data centres? These are going to have to ramp up and expand and do a better job for IPY.
On top of it, we are now also going to bring in marine census data, species description, interviews and traditional knowledge, so if we are really going to share data, it's going to have to go beyond just the geophysical data sets and the challenge here is to actually see how we could map and share data which includes social data, and even ideas and emotions. We have to understand what the needs of all the pieces are, and see if we can bring them together, but this hasn't been done before. It will be a good challenge. I think it's fun to have such preoccupations!
Finally, what plans are being made for raising awareness and communicating the importance of the IPY and its findings to the wider, non-scientific public? How is this being organized and/or centralised?
There are some very strong national efforts that are perceived as important both in this process of gaining funding, but also in showing that this or that particular programme is a prominent part of the IPY. And these efforts will come in all flavours, from classroom material, to expeditions, films and television. But I think our challenge at the IPY Programme Office is to raise that a little bit so that we have an impact on the global general public, not just the people in Norway, or Canada, or New Zealand and othe polar research nations. It's not that the message needs to be dictated, but that the people working on outreach need to come together to coordinate their actions and to decide who is working with who and how to achieve a greater international impact. So we are trying for a higher lever coordination with an international message that builds on this vast array of national programs.
By: Jean de Pomereu
