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International Polar Year: Studying the Ends of the Earth

by Kevin Clement, April 2007

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As I write this, a mighty icebreaker named Oden is plowing its way through the pack ice of Antarctica. On board the Sweden-based ship, American, Chilean, and Swedish scientists and educators are gathering data on the biological and chemical oceanography of these relatively unstudied regions. The teachers will share what they find with students all over the world. The voyage of the Oden is one of the first expeditions of the newly-launched International Polar Year (IPY), and in many ways it is a microcosm of the program as a whole: it is collaborative, it is multinational, it is motivated by scientific research, and its findings will be available to everyone.

The IPY is a concerted worldwide effort aimed at advancing our understanding of the Earth's remote Polar Regions. Beginning just last month, the IPY takes place over the course of two winters in both hemispheres and brings together researchers from dozens of nations to investigate global climate systems. Zegrahm Expeditions operates in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, bringing our clients to experience those remote areas first-hand, and often transporting and helping support researchers. But why should those who don't live or work in the high latitudes care about it? Here are five good reasons:

1. The world at large derived great benefits from each of the previous IPYs. This IPY is really just the latest and greatest in a series. The first one took place in 1882, the second in 1932, and the third in 1957. This last event, also known as the International Geophysical Year, prompted America's largest-scale scientific program up to that time, and inspired a generation of researchers. It included Operation Deep Freeze, the US Navy support mission to Antarctica. Each IPY has produced a quantum leap forward in our knowledge of how our planet functions. And each resulted in technological advances that have benefited all of us. The next IPY is sure to do even more.

2. The polar environment is the canary in the mineshaft for climate change. All the computer models predicted that the high latitudes, especially the Arctic, would feel the effects of global warming sooner and ber than anywhere else, and this has turned out to be the case. What is happening there serves as a preview of what will happen everywhere, and we need to know as much about it as we can.

3. The polar regions hold the key to understanding the global climate of the past. Most of what we know about the meteorological history of the earth comes from polar studies of glacial ice cores, lake and ocean bottom sediments, and glaciated landforms. The more we know about what has come before, the more we can understand what's happening now, and what we can expect in the future.

4. Things that happen in the Polar Regions affect all of us. With sea ice diminishing, it appears that the Northwest Passage will someday be a viable route for shipping. How soon might this occur? What effects will increased traffic have on the area? With permafrost melting and arctic coastlines crumbling, a number of villages in Alaska and elsewhere will soon have to be abandoned. Where will the villagers go? What will happen to their traditional ways of life? The breakup of ice shelves in Antarctica is allowing land ice to debouch into the sea, contributing to rising sea levels. Will they rise enough to threaten coastal cities? Changes to the polar biomes are impacting polar bears and some populations of penguins. Are they in danger of extinction? What can we do to help them? The answers will be found far to the north and south.

5. Collaborative efforts show nations how to work together. The last IPY, coming in the chilliest period of the Cold War, seemed doomed to failure. But somehow those rival nations managed to put aside their differences and allow their explorers and researchers to work together. They proved it could be done, and a direct result was the Antarctic Treaty, consid- ered a masterpiece of international diplomacy. The bottom line, therefore, is this: The systems of our planet are far too interconnected, and the Arctic and Antarctic are far too much of a bellwether for the rest of the world, for any of us to ignore what happens in the Polar Regions. It behooves us all to take an interest in the IPY. Meanwhile, the Oden sails on, and many more expeditions will follow. For more information: www.us-ipy.gov

Kevin Clement, a director of Zegrahm Expeditions, lives in Denali National Park. He will represent Zegrahm at the IPY symposium at the Byrd Polar Research Center, and will be giving presentations on our Arctic and Antarctic expeditions beginning with our White Sea voyages this summer.