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The Achievements of the IGY

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The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs)

Part of the book series: From Pole to Pole ((POLE))

Abstract

The IGY was a vast undertaking that took place from 1 July to the end of December 1958. It was orchestrated by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), an independent federation of international scientific unions. Co-sponsor was the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) established in 1951 as an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations framework.1 A Special Committee (Comité de l’Année Géophysique, CSAGI) was formed to act as the governing body for all IGY activities. Care was taken to ensure that CSAGI would remain non-nationalistic, apolitical, and geared towards a scientific agenda. The emphasis was on synchronic global measurements. Nevertheless, planning was in its fourth year before the USSR joined, reflecting the east–west disparity originating in the United States’ policy of containment according to which the original intention in the West had been to keep the Soviets out of Antarctica. As it turned out the Cold War became a veritable incubator for science, causing an upswing for several branches of geoscience on both sides of the iron curtain between east and west.

This text was originally prepared as a chapter for the present volume. Before its appearance here it became part of a paper (Elzinga 2009) presented at the 4th SCAR Action Group for History of Antarctic Science workshop in St Petersburg 2008. The longer paper compares salient characteristics and findings across all four polar years.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    WMO succeeded the earlier International Meteorological Committee (IMO), a non-governmental organization that was involved in orchestrating both IPY-1 and IPY-2. For a review at the time of the background, see the first volume Annals of IGY (ICSU 1959) which also contains chapters (assembled by Mike Baker at ICSU) written by IGY scientists who had also participated in IPY-2 (1932/1933). See also Chapters 9 and 10 in this volume.

  2. 2.

    Hamblin (2000:300–301).

  3. 3.

    Soviet atomic bomb tests were also made in October 1957, over Novaya Zemlya.

  4. 4.

    The US costs in Antarctica amounted to about 200 million dollars to set up and operate seven stations, one at the geographic South Pole.

  5. 5.

    A high-level British research station manned by members of the Royal Society was mounted on an ice shelf that rose and fell with the tide of the Weddell Sea (Halley Bay).

  6. 6.

    Petrov (1957) and Bulkeley (2008).

  7. 7.

    Craddock (1982:3).

  8. 8.

    Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Institut (1997:319 ff.) and Lolck (2004:92 ff.).

  9. 9.

    Langway (2008).

  10. 10.

    Dansgaard (2004) and Elzinga (in press).

  11. 11.

    Doel (2003).

  12. 12.

    Dietrich (1969) and Chapman (1959).

  13. 13.

    Wexler (1959).

  14. 14.

    Eklund (1959).

  15. 15.

    See further Elzinga (2009); cf. Elzinga (1993).

  16. 16.

    Fogg (1992:260).

  17. 17.

    Baldwin (1964:78–81).

  18. 18.

    Bull (1977:316).

  19. 19.

    Watts (1992:85–86).

  20. 20.

    Krasner (1982:2).

  21. 21.

    Templeton (2000:66).

  22. 22.

    Bertrand (1971:528–529).

  23. 23.

    Foreign Relations (1948:vol. 1, Part 2, 962 ff.).

  24. 24.

    Auburn (1982:89).

  25. 25.

    Whiteman (1963:1242).

  26. 26.

    Rowley (1966:284).

  27. 27.

    Fifield (1987:26).

  28. 28.

    Templeton (2000:229).

  29. 29.

    Kimball (1987:3).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Aant Elzinga

  2. Instituto Antártico Chileno, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Santiago, Chile

    Jorge Berguño

Authors
  1. Jorge Berguño
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  2. Aant Elzinga
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Aant Elzinga , Aant Elzinga or Jorge Berguño .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. c/o Directorate for Cultural Heritage, Oslo, 0034, Norway

    Susan Barr

  2. Fernpassstrasse 3, Munich, 81373, Germany

    Cornelia Luedecke

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Berguño, J., Elzinga, A. (2010). The Achievements of the IGY. In: Barr, S., Luedecke, C. (eds) The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs). From Pole to Pole. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12402-0_11

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