International Geophysical Year

The Event Year of international scientific cooperation that provided a temporary thaw in the Cold War

Date July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957-1958 continued a pre-Cold War tradition of international scientific cooperation, resulting in several significant discoveries.

The International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958 was the third major international effort at scientific cooperation of the modern era. The first was instigated by Karl Weyprecht, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian navy who explored the Arctic in 1871. In 1875, Weyprecht suggested the creation of an “International Polar Year” every fifty years, during which many nations would cooperate in polar research. The first successful International Polar Year took place in 1882-1883. Scientists from eleven countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Holland, the Soviet Union, the United States, Denmark, Great Britian, and France) joined efforts in establishing fourteen stations in the Arctic polar region (but none in Antarctica ). The scientific results were presented at the International Polar Conference in Vienna, Austria, in 1884.

Fifty years later, in 1932-1933, during the Second International Polar Year, forty countries participated in gathering scientific observations related to meteorology, magnetism, aurora, and transmission of radio waves in the ionosphere. Lloyd Viel Berkner, who took part in the Second International Polar Year, proposed at the 1952 International Council of Scientific Unions that the third International Polar Year should be moved from 1982 to 1957, primarily because of the projected peak of solar activity in that year.

Broad International Participation

Renamed the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958, the third cooperative effort broadly expanded its focus and its international base, and, in fact, extended well beyond one year. During the preparation of this worldwide event, forty-six nations agreed formally to participate in this effort, and by December of 1958, more than seventy nations had actively participated in the scientific endeavor. For a period of eighteen months, thousands of scientists gathered data about the earth’s interior, oceans, crust, and atmosphere, and the Sun’s activity in relation to Earth. U.S. participation in the IGY included research projects in aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, glaciology, gravity, the ionosphere, latitude and longitude determinations, meteorology, oceanography, seismology, solar activity, and rocket and satellite studies of the upper atmosphere.

During the IGY, twelve countries installed forty-eight bases in Antarctica. The United States built McMurdo, the largest of all American bases, located on the Ross Ice Shelf; the Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole; and Byrd base in Mary Byrd Land. The Soviet Union constructed Vostok near the Geomagnetic South Pole, at the center of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and Mirny, named after a historic expedition ship. France constructed the Dumont d’Urville base in Adélie Land and the Charcot base about two hundred miles inland. This base was devoted to the study of glaciology, and three French glaciologists, including the famous Claude Lorius, spent the entire eighteen months making observations that changed the understanding of glaciology in the areas of ice movement, temperature, age, and mass balance.

Scientific Results

The IGY is credited with two important discoveries: the identification of the Van Allen radiation belts and confirmation of the existence of a 64,000-kilometer-long, mid-oceanic ridge.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth; on January 31, 1958, the United States launched Explorer I, the first successful American satellite. Based on the data received from the scientific instruments on these satellites, Fred Singer, Paul Kellogg, and the Soviet S. N. Vernov identified the magnetic radiation belts, located in a region above the equator and produced by cosmic radiation. They were named after James Van Allen, the principal investigator of the program.

The discovery of mid-oceanic ridges confirmed the theory of continental drift and provided the basis for the later development of plate tectonics. This discovery, produced by an extensive and coordinated sequence of oceanographic voyages, was accompanied by other substantial findings about the flow of deep ocean currents and the seasonal fluctuations of sea level. Scientists discovered that sea level is about one foot higher in the summer and the fall than in the spring and winter.

Scientists took advantage of the peak in solar activity in 1957—one of the reasons Berkner had suggested that the third international year be scheduled for that year—to study the lifetime of sunspots, their effects on seasonal weather, and their effects on radio communications and navigational systems. In the area of meteorology, nearly sixty weather stations were established in the Antarctic and the sub-Antarctic waters. These stations filled an enormous gap in the number of meteorological stations in the Southern Hemisphere. By launching balloons equipped with weather instruments capable of radioing back to Earth information on temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, winds, and structure of the atmosphere, these stations dramatically increased the ability to understand and predict weather patterns. Other meteorological stations were placed along three meridians, and these stations targeted atmospheric circulation and the jet streams.

Impact

The IGY produced a wide range of cooperative scientific endeavors, many of which could never have been envisioned in a tense world where the Cold War had made international cooperation difficult or impossible. Resulting from the vision of Karl Weyprecht seventy-five years before, it reminded the scientific community of the vast potential of a collaborative quest for knowledge.

Bibliography

Eklund, Carl R., and Joan Beckman. Antarctica: Polar Research and Discovery During the International Geophysical Year. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. A description of the extraordinary achievements of the IGY.

Fraser, Ronald. Once Around the Sun: The Story of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958. 2d ed. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1959. Details the solar discoveries of the IGY.

Hyde, Margaret O. Exploring Earth and Space. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958. Examines the the spatial and terrestrial exploration that occurred during the IGY.

Stuster, Jack. Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Takes a behavioral science perspective and examines how humans adjust and perform in long-term isolation, such as that found on spacecraft. Provides good context for several notable expeditions since the nineteenth century.

Wilson, J. Tuzo. IGY, The Year of the New Moons. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961. A Canadian geophysicist explains the spatial discoveries of the IGY.