Polar Research Reveals New Evidence of Global Environmental Change

25.2.2009 13:00
Multidisciplinary research from the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 provides new evidence of the widespread effects of global warming in the polar regions.

Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic, as well as global ocean and atmospheric circulation and sea level. These are but a few findings reported in “State of Polar Research”, released today by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU). In addition to lending insight into climate change, IPY has aided our understanding of pollutant transport, species’ evolution, and storm formation, among many other areas.

The International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) was an intensive, internationally coordinated scientific research campaign in the Arctic and the Antarctic sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In two action-packed years, IPY researchers observed exciting new phenomena, made fundamental scientific discoveries, developed
new methods and tools, advanced interdisciplinary and international links in polar science and, most importantly, gained new understanding of the role of the polar regions in the total Earth system.

The State of Polar Research

Many IPY projects and their offspring will continue beyond the formal observational period, which ends in March 2009. The full scientific legacy of IPY will evolve in the years and decades following the completion of the observational programme. Already however, significant advances in scientific knowledge and understanding have begun to emerge.

This report summarizes a few of the early discoveries and achievements and gives recommendations for the way forward.

The report can be downloaded from here.

More information on the International Polar Year is available from the IPY home page and the Finnish national IPY pages at the address: www.ipy-finland.fi