a vision for the international polar year 2007-2008, report in brief

8/8/2019 A Vision for the International Polar Year 2007-2008, Report in Brief

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INteRNatIoNaL PoLaR yeaR 2007-2008

An Overview of Research Goals and Activities

National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Engineering

Institute of MedicineNational Research Council



I

nternational Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 is one o the largest collaborative science

programs ever attempted. From March 1, 2007, through March 9, 2009, scientists

rom across the globe will conduct coordinated research programs in the Arctic

and Antarctic. More than 200 projects are planned, involving 50,000 people rom

more than 60 countries. The ambitious agenda has a distinctly multidisciplinary

approach, incorporating physical and biological sciences, social sciences, and a largeeducation component.

IPY 2007-2008 continues a long tradition o scienti ic collaboration and achievement,

dating back to the irst IPY 150 years ago in 1882-1883, a second IPY in 1932-1933,

and the International Geophysical Year in 1957-1958. The National Science Foundation

has already unded the irst round o IPY 2007-2008 projects in the United States,

and many other nations have put substantial resources behind the collaboration. The

National Academies’ Polar Research Board developed a vision or IPY 2007-2008 and

continues to provide leadership or the United States and to serve as a resource to

participants and the general public as IPY gets under way.

Today, the polar regions still represent a vast rontier ripe or scienti ic discovery. With

the support o IPY 2007-2008, scientists will work together to unlock the secrets o the

Arctic and Antarctic worlds: How does li e persist in these, the coldest, darkest corners

o the globe? How will changes in glaciers, ice sheets, snow cover, and sea ice a ect

the global Earth system? How are traditional ways o li e in the polar latitudes acing the

challenges o a changing planet? What will be discovered when 21st century technology

and new scienti ic monitoring and observational systems e amine this unique rontier?

IPY 2007-2008 will help answer these and other questions.

POLAR REGIONS CRLINKED TO GLOBALSYSTEMS

Warmer temperatures asea ice to melt and glboth recede and low

the sea, as illustrated bJakobshavn Glacier in(above). NASA data sh Arctic perennial sea icnormally survives themelt season, shrunk bybetween 2004 and 200whatever happens in thregions matters here atwherever home may bice can lead to sea-levthreatening coastal com

and ecosystems. It canglobal ocean circulationclosely connected withclimate conditions.

GLOBAL CHANGES MOST KEENLY

FELT IN POLAR REGIONS IPY 2007-2008 is accompanied by a power ul senseo urgency. Recent years have brought a lurry o

troubling changes in the polar environment—changesthat are happening aster than at other latitudes,and aster than scientists had e pected. Thawing

perma rost is populating the arctic with sinking houses,orests o “drunken trees” that tilt at odd angles,

as well as weakened roads, runways, and pipelines.



a samPLINg of IPy PRojects

GLOBAL LINKAGES: Melting sea ice a ects more than just sea levels. When polar icereezes, it e udes a salty brine that descends to the deep ocean. When polar ice melts, it

releases relatively resh water that remains in the ocean’s sur ace layers. This reeze-meltcycle not only alters the comple ion o polar oceans, but it can also alter the circulation

o water and heat through oceans around the world, a ecting regional climates. DonPerovich and Bruce Elder o the U.S. Army Corps o Engineers Cold Regions Research

and Engineering Laboratory and Stephen Ackley o the University o Te as at San Antonioare setting up a system o buoys both in the Arctic Basin and in Antarctica’s Amundsenand Bellingshausen Seas. The buoys will take year-long measurements o sea ice thatwill help scientists understand the changing dynamics o the polar reeze-melt cycle,

and what they mean or the uture o the world’s oceans.

NEW FRONTIERS: Discovered in 1996, Antarctica’sLake Vostok is one o a number o wet environmentsrecently discovered beneath 4 kilometers o glacialice. The ice is ar too thick or light to penetrate, andthe lake’s water (which is -3o Celsius) is kept rom

reezing only by the immense pressure othe glacier’s weight. It’s not the most hospitableo habitats, but one that scientists believemay be home to a unique collection omicroorganisms. Craig Cary, University oDelaware’s Center or Marine Genomics,shown here with Don Cowan, will lead ateam o researchers to characterize the“metagenome” (the genomic DNA o anentire community o organisms) o the lake’smicrobial occupants, which have been cut o

rom the rest o the world or millions o years.This project is a joint e ort o Russian, French,

and American researchers.

UNIqUE VANTAGE POINT: Planted a mile beneath the Antarctic

ice sheet and encompassing a cubic kilometer, IceCube is no ordinarytelescope. Instead o light, IceCube’s strings o basketball-sized sensorsdetect collisions o neutrinos with atoms within the ice. Most o these

neutrinos are the product o interactions between cosmic rays andthe atmosphere. But or every million o these atmospheric neutrinos,a neutrino rom deep in the cosmos will reach IceCube a ter passingthrough the Earth, including neutrinos that originated in black holes,

gamma ray bursts, and supernova remnants. Sensors are alreadycollecting data, and construction on the telescope will be completed in

2011. Scientists hope that this new kind o astronomy will lead tonew discoveries about the universe.

Here are just some o the planned IPY research projects withthe six key themes shaping the IPY scientifc agenda.

Not all polar research is done on the ground. Robin Bell atColumbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory isdeveloping a system o airborne instruments to e plore polar regionsthat are covered by ice. By mounting tools like an ice-penetratingradar antennae and a laser altimeter on a small plane, Dr. Bell willbe able to study an entire world o lakes, rivers, mountains, and activevolcanoes buried deep beneath polar ice sheets.



ENVIRONMENTAL STATUS: To understand how climatic

variability and human activities have a ected the Antarcticice, a team o Norwegian and American scientists will workwith one eye on the past and one on the uture. They’ll crossoverland rom a Norwegian base at to the South Pole in2007-2008, and make the return trip the ollowing year—3,000 kilometers in 63 days. By retracing some o the stepso scientists who took similar routes in the 1960s, they’ll beable to detect changes in the ice during the last 40 years. At the same time, the data they’ll be collecting can be usedby uture scientists to answer similar questions, perhapsduring the ne t IPY.

qUANTIFYING CHANGE:Polar bears may be the most recognizedmembers o the Arctic community, but we might do well to pay moreattention to the ungi living underground. How these organismsreact to warming temperatures will be key to determining how much

o the carbon currently locked up in arctic soils is released to theatmosphere as carbon dio ide, the largest greenhouse gas. Using arange o new molecular techniques, Lee Taylor, University o AlaskaFairbanks, and Chad Nusbaum o the Genome Sequencing and Analysis Program at the Broad Institute, will conduct a communitywide analysis o Arctic ungi to fnd out e actly how these organisms

unction in their environment and what kinds o changes increasingtemperatures may bring.

HUMAN DIMENSIONS: Astrid Ogilvie, University o Colorado,Boulder, will lead an international team o researchers in ane amination o the social dimensions o environmental changein northern regions o Canada, Iceland, and Norway. A varietyo methods and projects—interviewing members o the fshingand whale-watching industries, studying how armers in themountains o Norway have adapted to changing conditions,and e amining diaries dating rom as ar back as 1725—willhelp Dr. Ogilvie and her colleagues develop an understandingo how northern societies perceived and were a ected by

changes in their environment, as well as how they haveadapted their lives to those changes.



International Polar Year 2007-2008 is an intense, internationally

coordinated campaign of research in the polar regions.

Key ReseaRch aReas

• Environmental Status: Assessing environmental status and change in the polar regions

• Quanti ying Change: Understanding past change and predicting uture change

• Global Linkages: Links between polar and global processes

• New Frontiers: Science exploration in the polar regions

• Unique Vantage Point: Observing Earth and space rom the poles

• Human Dimensions: Sustainability o circumpolar societies

IPy LeadeRshIP

The National Academies’ Polar Research Board serves as the U.S. National Committee or IPY

2007-2008 and as the liaison to the primary international partners, the International Council

or Science (ICSU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). U.S. ederal agencies

involved in IPY 2007-2008 include the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological

Survey, National Institutes o Health, Smithsonian, and many others ( or a ull listing o U.S.

partners, go to http://www.us-ipy.gov ).

To read more about IPY and fnd out how you can participate, visit the ollowing websites:

U.S. National Committee:http://www.us-ipy.org

U.S. Government:http://www.us-ipy.gov

International Programme O fce:http://www.ipy.orgIPY Youth Committee:http://www.ipyyouth.org

Attention educAtors! Visithttp://www.us-ipy.gov or a list o new classroom resources.

Photo credits: Sinking house and Quantifying Change: Larry Hinzman. New Frontiers (top photo):Craig Cary, University of Delaware; New Frontiers (airplane): Michael Studinger, Lamont-Doherty EarthObservatory of Columbia University; Unique Vantage Point: Gerald Przybylski, Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratory; Human Dimensions: Trond Woxen; Environmental Status: Daniel A. Dixon, Universityof Maine. Researcher (front cover): University of Washington; Walrus (front cover): NOAA



about the PoLaR ReseaRch boaRd

The Polar Research Board is a unit of the National Academies dedicated to

enhancing understanding of the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the cryosphere and

providing guidance to the nation on issues of importance in cold regions. The

PRB provides a forum for the polar science community to address research

needs and policy issues, conducts program reviews, and facilitates communi-cations on polar issues among academia, industry, and government.

about the NatIoNaL academIes

The National Academy of Sciences was established by Congress in 1863 to

provide independent scientific advice to the government and nation. Today, the

Academy comple includes three honorary societies that elect new members

to their ranks each year—the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine—and the National

Research Council, the operating arm that conducts the bulk of the institution’s

science-policy and technical work.

POLAR RESEARCH BOARD

MEMBERS:

ROBIN BELL,Chair, Lamont-Doherty EarthColumbia University

JAMES E. BERNER, Community Health Ser Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

DAVID BROMWICH, Byrd Polar Research COhio State University

CALVIN R. CLAUER, University of Michigan

JODY W. DEMING, University of Washingto

ANDREW G. FOUNTAIN, Portland State Uni

SVEN D. HAAKANSON,Alutiiq Museum, Ko

LAWRENCE HAMILTON, University of New

LARRY HINZMAN, University of Alaska

STEPHANIE PFIRMAN, Barnard College

DIANA HARRISON WALL, Colorado State U

JAMES WHITE, University of Colorado

Ex-OFFICIO MEMBERS:

JACKIE GREBMEIER, University of Tenness

MAHLON C. KENNICUTT, Te as A&M Univ

TERRY WILSON, Ohio State University

STAFF:

CHRIS ELFRING, Board Director

MARIA UHLE, Program Officer

LEAH PROBST, Research Associate

RACHAEL SHIFLETT, Sr. Program Assistant

ANDREAS SOHRE, Financial Associate

CONTACT THE POLAR RESEARCH B

The National AcademiesPolar Research Board500 Fifth Street, NWWashington, DC 20001

Phone: 202-334-3479http://dels.nas.edu/[email protected]

a vision for the international polar year 2007-2008, report in brief

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