International Polar Year

Remember that song by Donald Fagan IGY? Probably only a few of you do. The older ones, like me. OK, I'm not THAT old, but I'm old enough to remember Steely Dan before anything they'd done was remixed. Anyway, I bring up IGY, which stands for International Geophysical Year, because this year we are embarking on something similar. The IGY was a year for scientists to study and make known advances in geophysics. That is, the earth. The IGY encompassed eleven Earth sciences: aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations (precision mapping), meteorology, oceanography, seismology and solar activity.

Well, we are now well into the International Polar Year, which seeks to take measure and create awareness for the shrinking ice caps, eroding coastlines, dying cultures and species. This spring the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization have teamed up to study the poles and to find out if global warming is really truly honestly going to be a problem. So keep you eyes peeled for more hews to this effect.

Filed under: Activism, History, Learning, Antarctica