The world has changed dramatically in the 125 years since Karl Weyprecht's death in 1881, and I often wonder what he would make of the global change. Alternating current has electrified the world. Radio communication, which didn't exist at the time, lead to television, GPS and wireless technologies. Internal combustion engines, then in their infancy, have revolutionized transportation and industry and contributed to altering the climate system. The world's population has grown sixfold. And our understanding of the Earth as a system has made leaps and bounds through diligent, scientific study and collaboration. Throughout this period-- a few short generations but beyond the span of all but the most robust lifespans-- the International Polar Years have provided vision and leadership, fostering international scientific cooperation and understanding, transcending nationalistic agendas with the goal of sharing observations, data, and insights into the polar regions and their global linkages.

A quick Google search on the keywords "international year" churns up some 1.5 billion results and a plethora of variations on the theme: international years of microcredit (2005), rice (2004), deserts and desertification (2006), coral reefs (2008). But the oldest, the original, the "real deal" is the International Polar Year. The vision of a Lieutenant in the Austrian Navy named Karl Weyprecht who survived an 1872-74 Arctic expedition with Julius von Payer in which Franz Josef Land was discovered, but their ship, the Admiral Tegetthoff, has to be abandonded in the ice pack. Frustrated that the thousands of observations collected during the expedition "furnish us with a picture of the extreme effects of the forces of Nature in the Arctic regions, but leave us completely in the dark with respect to their causes,” Weyprecht called for an international year of concentrated research activity, organized through national efforts but coordinated at the international level, to methodically map Arctic geography and observe seasonal processes. Scheduled for 1882-83, Weyprecht died before he was able to see his vision of the first International Polar Year come to fruition.

According to Kevin Wood and Jim Overland's History of the First IPY site:
"During the first IPY eleven nations combined to establish fourteen principal research stations spread across the Polar Regions; twelve were located in the Arctic (see map), along with at least 13 auxiliary stations. Some 700 men incurred the dangers of Arctic service to establish and relieve these stations between 1881 and 1884. Leading geophysical observatories around the world also contributed to the coordinated research program of the IPY."

The second IPY fifty years later, in 1932-33, built on the legacy of the first, with scientists exploring the ionosphere and auroral phenomenon as they tried to understand radio wave propogation and the Earth system in space. Although larger and more ambitious than the first, many of the records of the Second IPY were lost during World War II.

The best known of the past international years, the International Geophysical Year or IGY was begun as the third IPY and was expanded to include a focus on the equatorial regions of the world as well as the poles. While the first Earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik, remains the most well known element of IGY, the international program also set the stage for the Antarctic Treaty, which protects the southern continent for non-military, scientific research. In the United States, IGY activities were conveyed to students through updates in the Weekly Reader newsletter, and via a series of 13 science education films, each half an hour long and focused on one of the research themes for IGY.

The world has changed enormously even since the IGY, doubling in population and transforming the planet's ecosystem in subtle and profound ways. As we prepare for the upcoming IPY and celebrate with our international year colleagues the 50th anniversary of IGY, we can also look back on Weyprecht's original vision which is still very much alive and thriving.

Wrtitten by Marc McCaffrey