The International Polar Year is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009.

IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually the fourth polar year, following those in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8. In order to have full and equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, IPY 2007-8 covers two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009 and will involve over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate, follow, and get involved with, cutting edge science in real-time.

IOC is a strong supporter of the International Polar Year. Involvement has come at the level of our governing bodies, programs, secretariat and member states. [more]

The IOC Executive Council, at its 37th Session, in 2004, endorsed the International Polar Year (IPY). By Resolution EC-XXXVII.3 it made some suggestions for IOC participation in IPY and requested that the Executive Secretary present a report on IPY preparations to the 23rd Session of the IOC Assembly. At that session, in 2005, the Assembly endorsed Resolution EC-XXXVII.3 and requested the Intergovernmental Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS) consider the establishment of GOOS Regional Alliances for the polar regions. At its 39th session, in 2006, the Executive Council reconfirmed its support for the ongoing IOC contributions to the organization and conduct of the IPY. It also instructed the Executive Secretary to prepare an IOC Web document reflecting the main contributions of IOC Member States to the IPY (this website) and agreed that GOOS, JCOMM and IODE should play active roles in this process and support future observing systems in polar regions. It also urged IOC Member States to provide sufficient resources to implement all the oceanographic proposals in the IPY Plan.

IODE contribution to IPY

The IODE Committee, during its nineteenth Session (Trieste, Italy, 12-156 March 2007) welcomed the invitation of the IPY Subcommittee on Data Policy and Management and strongly urged IODE National Oceanographic Data Centres to actively participate in, and contribute to the IPY activities as proposed. The Committee invited cooperation between the International Polar Year (IPY) and OceanExpert for management of experts information.

The data set resulting from IPY is considered to be the most important legacy of this IPY, or, in the words of the IPY Framework Document: “In fifty years time the data resulting from IPY 2007-2008 may be seen as the most important single outcome of the programme” and “These data … will act as benchmark data which can serve as a baseline against which global change is measured”. The central clause of the IPY Data Policy (http://classic.ipy.org/international/joint-committee/data-management.htm ) reads: “In accordance with
 - the Twelfth WMO Congress, Resolution 25 and 40 (Cg-XII, 1995)
 - the ICSU 1996 General Assembly Resolution
 - the ICSU Assessment on Scientific Data and Information (ICSU 2004b)
 - Article III-1c from the Antarctic Treaty
 - the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Data Exchange Policy
and in order to maximize the benefit of data gathered under the auspices of the IPY, the IPY Joint Committee requires that IPY data, including operational data delivered in real time, are made available fully, freely and on the shortest feasible timescale.”

There are 39 IPY coordination projects which fall in the category of Oceanography. Each of these 39 coordination projects consists of a series of up to 10 or 15 subprojects. Each one of these subprojects is an international oceanographic project in its own right. The resulting dataflow will therefore be huge. The handling of this data flow requires the active involvement of all relevant, discipline-based data centres, such as NODCs.

The IPY Subcommittee on Data Policy and Management invites NODCs from countries active in the polar regions to become IPY data centres. IPY may very well act as a stimulus to increase the awareness for the importance of data management and be an opportunity for NODCs to obtain additional resources.  An IPY data centre should: (i) contain and be willing to identify IPY data; (ii) preserve and provide continual access to IPY data - this includes the years after the formal IPY period; (iii) abide by the IPY Data Policy and Data Sub-committee standards; and (iv) ensure that the contents metadata catalogue is up to date with current data holdings. The IPY Subcommittee on Data Policy and Management further asks the IODE Committee to endorse data management activities for the oceanographic IPY projects and urges NODCs to be actively involved. As the first step in this process, NODCs from countries active in the polar regions are asked to coordinate activities with their national IPY committees and provide oceanographic data management assistance where possible and necessary. Addresses and points of contact of their National IPY Committee can be found on the IPY website (http://www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/national/ )

The following information has been recieved from IODE NODCs and Marine Libraries describing their contribution to IPY:

China

1. Full text of the “Chinese Journal of Polar Research”  (underway);
2. Full text of the “Chinese Journal of Polar Science (English edition)” (underway);
3. Link to the Website of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA), http://www.chinare.gov.cn/en/index.html, where can find events and publications of the CAA.

Japan

Japan (JODC) holds physical and chemical parameters observed by the JARE (Japan Antarctic Research Expedition). Such data and included in Serial Station Data provided throgh the J-DOSS system (JODC Data On-line Service System): http://www.jodc.go.jp/service.htm

Kazakhstan

During February - March, 2007 two experts from Kazakh National Hydrometeorological Service on the Russian Hydrometereological Service invitation took part in 52-th Russian Antarctic ex-pedition (RAE) on the "Academician Fedorov". scientific - forwarding vessel.
Priority tasks of 52-th RAE were:
- Study the global climate changes;
- Researches subglacial Lake “East”;
- Realization of the geological and geophysical researches;
- Realization of the scientific programs within the framework of 3rd International Polar Year (2007/2008).

Kazakh  experts masted the new techniques of the hydrographic, meteorological, oceanographic and ecological works on board of the vessel and the polar stations.
At the present the question about expediency of the Republic of Kazakhstan occurrence to the Antarctic Region treaty system is considered by the Republic of Kazakhstan Government

United States of America

US-NODC: the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center will participate in the following activities for the International Polar Year (IPY):

S. Levitus et al., Preparation of oceanographic atlas and database of the Sub-Arctic Seas:
This Atlas and accompanying CD-ROM will contain oceanographic data collected for the Sub-Arctic seas. It is anticipated that there will be monthly data  distribution plots for each year; monthly climatic maps of temperature and salinity at the sea surface and depth levels of 5 and 10 meters using objective analysis.  The Atlas will also include, in electronic format, selected copies of rare books and articles about the history of the sub-arctic exploration and climate studies as well as photos, which provide information about the people and environment of this region.

US-NOAA Central Library:

The Library has prepared a comprehensive bib on NOAA's Polar resources, which has been updated April 2007. The bibliography entitled: "International Polar Year 2007-2008 Resources on Polar Research in the NOAA Central Library Network : A Selected Bibliography" reflects the NCL network's unique print and online resources on exploration and
research in Polar Regions. It includes citations organized "by title" from NOAALINC, the library's online catalog, and from the library's historical collections. The data and listings are comprehensive from the 18th century to the present. The formats represented in this resource include print, CD-ROM, online full-text documents, digital videos, digital images, online cruise data and Web resources. This document provides full-text access, copyright permitting, to significant Polar documents in the NOAA Library collections.
There are over one-hundred-and-fifty electronic references to unique historical documents that have been scanned and made available online via NOAALINC, as well as to scientific datasets available online via the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) Ocean Archive System. The Bibliography is also published online under LISD Current Reference
Series 2006-1 and is available to the international community via NOAA Central Library's home page and its online catalog NOAALINC. This Bibliography may also serve as an Internet locator for printed and online resources in Polar research. The publication is available online for downloading in Microsoft Word and in PDF formats at:
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/Bibliographies/IPY2007.doc
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/Bibliographies/IPY2007.pdf
This Bibliography has been linked to the official sites of IPY and other national and international websites.  We would like this resource to be available from the IODE web with the list of contributions of IODE marine libraries to IPY.  Peter, if you have questions relating to this issue, please contact me at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or  301-713-2607 x.147.
2. We have also developed an IPY Poster graphically displaying NCL's polar resources. It can be used at conferences, displays etc., and it is available in PDF, JPEG, and TIFF formats: at:
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/Bibliographies/IPY2007_poster.pdf
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/Bibliographies/IPY2007_poster.jpg
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/Bibliographies/IPY2007_poster.tif

Russian Federation

RuNODC is responsible for:

• development the national Data management plan and guidelines for data and metadata collection and processing;
• construction of the WEB-based system and infrastructure for the IPY data and metadata collection and exchange. The system will include centralized base of IPY metadata and distributed storage of data that are accessible by use of E2EDM technology;
• collection, processing and storage of the national IPY 2007/08 meteorological, oceanographical and socio-economical data;
• inventoring and construction of historical meteorological and oceanographical data bases for the polar regions;
• monitoring of the national JPY data flows and information resources.