The Global Interagency IPY Polar Snapshot Year (GIIPSY) is a World Meteorological Organization (WMO)/International Council for Science (ICSU) approved IPY Project (Project #91) whose objective is to obtain high-definition satellite snapshots of the polar regions during 2007-2008. Our primary purpose is to use these snapshots as benchmarks for gauging past and future environmental changes in the polar ice, ocean, and land. In the spirit of IPY, we also seek to secure these data sets as our legacy to the next generations of polar scientists.
GIIPSY comprises a group of polar scientists from around the world who have assembled a consolidated list of thematic objectives that call upon the collective resources of international and national space agencies. Our programmatic goal is to identify ways in which the resources of space-faring countries can be used in such a way as to collect data with which to address these scientific objectives, without putting undo burden on any single organisation. To that end, we seek cooperation in terms of spaceborne instruments, data relay systems, ground segments, processing, and data archiving and distribution capabilities.
A general description of the GIIPSY programme and its current status and progress can be found on-line at http://bprc.osu.edu/rsl/GIIPSY. Detailed scientific driving requirements and objectives for the satellite observations were derived from pre-IPY town hall meetings (e.g. AGU December 2006), discussions with other science planning groups including IGOS (Goodison, 2007, IGOS, 2007), and wide-ranging debate within the GIIPSY science community. The complete set of requirements are documented in subsequent publications and presentations (Jezek and Drinkwater, 2006, Drinkwater et al, 2008) or on the GIIPSY Web site. Together, we have taken the detailed science requirements and distilled them into a set of thematic objectives. Topics range from permafrost to sea ice and include several objectives that would be the first of their kind. In order to fulfil these scientific objectives, carefully coordinated data acquisitions over both the northern and southern hemisphere have to be scheduled using the broad range of available satellite instrument capabilities. This is best achieved using polar-orbiting satellites that routinely acquire image or other instrument data over the high-latitude regions along 14 crossing orbits each day.
Operational meteorological satellites equipped with the AVHRR optical imager such as NOAA-15 and MetOp acquire data which are routinely composited to provide complete polar coverage at intervals of up to a few hours. Such overlapping images acquired by meteorological satellites are used to track large-scale cloud motion, for instance, when the surface is cloud-covered. Meanwhile, other higher resolution satellite optical instruments may be used to capture ice sheet movement in instances when the surface is not obscured by clouds. Optical data are complemented by all-weather, day or night data acquired using satellite microwave radar or radiometers. Regular Arctic and Antarctic mosaics allow regional details of sea-ice conditions to be determined using microwave synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image data, while pairs of high resolution SAR images may be used interferometrically, to reveal streaming ice flow in Greenland or Antarctica.
Finally, the products derived from multi-satellite, multi-frequency satellite data may be plotted on a virtual Earth to fully capture the state of various elements of the cryosphere. Many such products are now routinely available in Google for convenient viewing of current status of the entire Arctic (see: http://www.seaice.dk/damocles) and Antarctic (see: http://www.seaice.dk/polarview/google.s.html) regions.
IPY Space Task Force
Interaction between GIIPSY and the international space agencies is coordinated through the IPY Space Task Group. The Space Task Group (STG) of the Sub-committee on Observations of the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee for the International Polar Year 2007-2008 is the body tasked with addressing how to meet the space observation requirements of IPY. A number of meetings have taken place between the following Space agency members and participating organisations: Agenzie Spaziale Italiana (ASI), China Meteorological Administration (CMA), the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (ROSHYDROMET), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and WMO. Meanwhile, several other agencies have been approached about joining the federated efforts of the STG, including the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the U.S. Geological Service (USGS).
The STG has agreed upon three important programmatic activities. First, the STG adopted the GIIPSY science requirements for guiding agency data acquisition planning. Second, the agencies are populating individual “data portfolios”. Individual portfolios represent best efforts given agency resources and strategic mandates but in total the goal is to fulfil them. By collaborating, the combined portfolios will represent a more complete response to the GIIPSY requirements. Most recently, the Space agencies have agreed to try to develop a coordinated acquisition strategy for high data-rate instruments. The idea is to distribute the image acquisition burden across several agencies.
Current progress towards achieving a data legacy is identified in the form of the portfolio contents already assembled on the GIIPSY web site. Image examples acquired during 2007 and 2008 illustrate the broad range of products that will constitute the IPY data legacy.
Epilogue
The recent pace of changes observed in the polar regions by satellites has stimulated global interest in the International Polar Year. It is also 50 years since the technical triumph of Sputnik and the International Geophysical Year. The confluence of international science programs, technical capabilities in satellite remote sensing, and IPY therefore present an extremely valuable opportunity for gathering data essential to understanding the changing polar climate and its wider-reaching global impact.
IPY uniquely federates scientific activities across 63 nations while the IPY Space Task Group and the GIIPSY IPY Project are actively harnessing the technical capabilities of the world’s Space Agencies and the specialist knowledge of their science communities to obtain a unique legacy data suite– or ‘polar snapshot’, comprising a broad range of satellite products. This data legacy will provide the opportunity to engage a new generation of researchers, experts, educators, policy makers, and polar residents in understanding the polar regions and changes in its environment, as well as the global consequences of these changes.
Bibliography
2006 Jezek, K.C., and M. Drinkwater Global Interagency IPY Polar Snapshot Year, EOS, Vol 87, Issue 50, p. 566.
2008 Jezek, K., and M. Drinkwater, Global interagency IPY polar snapshot year: an update, Environmental Geology, doi 10.1007/s00254-008-1393-y.
2008 Drinkwater, M.R., K.C. Jezek, and J.R. Key, Coordinated Satellite Observations during the International Polar Year 2007-2008: Towards achieving a Polar Constellation, Space Research Today, 171, 6-17.
2008 GIIPSY – A flagship project of the IPY, Imaging Notes, 23(1), 20-25.
2007 Goodison, B., J. Brown, K. Jezek, J Key, T. Prowse, A. Snorrason, and T. Worby. State and fate of the polar cryosphere, including variability of the Arctic hydrologic cycle. WMO Bulletin, vol. 56(4), p. 284-292.
2007 IGOS, Integrated Global Observing Strategy Cryosphere Theme Report - For the Monitoring of our Environment from Space and from Earth. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization. WMO/TD-No. 1405, 100 pp.
N. American Press Contact: Ken Jezek ({encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "})
European Press Contact: Mark R. Drinkwater ({encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "})
GIIPSY External Web Link: http://bprc.osu.edu/rsl/GIIPSY
