International Polar Year as big as the moon landings

14 March 2006

International Polar Year (2007-2008), funded in the UK by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), can be compared to NASA's mission to the moon, according to leading polar scientists in London today.

"We have dazzling science. I think we can make as big an impact as any previous scientific programme, moon landings included," said programme director, David Carlson to an audience of journalists and scientists at the launch event, held at the Wellcome Trust offices.

Photograph: RRS Ernest Shackleton ploughs a furrow through the ice.

Chris Rapley, director of NERC's British Antarctic Survey (BAS) backed up this statement. "We want to leave a legacy of new knowledge, new systems and new understanding of the climate. We want this to be equivalent to the moon landings in terms of inspiring people."

But Professor Rapley highlighted that this was not science for the sake of science. "These are crucial issues at a critical time. The polar regions are an integral part of the machinery of this object," he said, pointing to a large photograph of planet Earth.

"If you want to understand the global carbon cycle or the global water cycle you must understand the polar regions."

He explained how Arctic sea ice is decreasing at an alarming 8% every decade and that September 2005 saw a record low. "You don't need to be a maths genius to work out that one September in not too many decades there will be no sea ice at all."

The three fastest warming regions on the planet are close to the poles: Alaska, Siberia and parts of the West Antarctic peninsula. Melting ice sheets, along with thermal expansion, causes sea levels to rise. The exact contribution made by melting ice sheets to sea level rise is still uncertain but Professor Rapley brought the point home with an example of the impact in Britain. "The Thames Barrier was used once a year in the 1980s. It is now used on average six times a year and in 2000 it was used 24 times. Economists calculate that the cost of London flooding could be as high as £40bn, or 2% of the UK's gross domestic product."

More than 60 countries worldwide are involved in International Polar Year (IPY) investing over £1·5bn. The UK is the third biggest contributor after the United States and Canada, with NERC contributing over £40m. This is made up of the Arctic and Antarctic Funding Initiatives (£8m) plus the running and infrastructure costs of staff, bases, ships and planes operated by the British Antarctic Survey over this period.

The IPY committee pared down 1,200 expressions of interest to 220 main projects. The proposals range from examining trapped bubbles in ice cores, that tell scientists what was happening in the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years ago, to proposals that will help us predict what will happen to the world's permafrost in the coming decades. Permafrost holds vast reservoirs of carbon - more than the temporal and tropical forests put together.

The scientific team are in discussions with the leading space agencies including NASA and the European Space Agency to produce a global snapshot during the year. They want the space community to aim their resources at the poles in a concerted effort to gather much needed information on the state of the ice sheets and sea ice.

Photograph: Bubbles in ice cores tell us when we moved from leaded petrol to unleaded.

With highly structured science programmes some scientists voiced concerns that there will be no room for surprises or unexpected results. They pointed to the last event of this kind, International Geophysical Year, held 50 years ago, which led to some remarkable breakthroughs and memorable events including the Sputnik launch, the discovery of the Van Allen Belts and the Antarctic Treaty.

Doctor Carlton said he saw this question in terms of ice-breakers and kayaks. "Much of the work will be international collaborations requiring a great deal of organisation, many staff and much equipment - the big ice-breakers. But we have also been careful to fund much smaller projects too - the kayaks. And we really have no idea what kind of scientific breakthroughs these smaller projects will produce, which makes them so exciting."

Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, could not be at the event but said in a pre-recorded video, "We are on the brink of a hugely exciting scientific campaign. I am proud that the UK, notably through the Natural Environment Research Council is taking a lead role in the International Polar Year."

Press release: 15/06

International Polar Year as big as the moon landings

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