International Polar Year 2007-2008 kicks off

The International Polar Year (IPY) is a scientific collaboration and large international team effort focused on the Arctic and Antarctic regions. It's actually a two-year program, from March 2007 to March 2009, to allow sufficent time to conduct research on these two critical regions.

Organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), IPY 2007-8 will study two full annual cycles (March 2007 to March 2009) and will involve over 200 projects with thousands of scientists from more than 60 nations examining a wide range of research topics.

IPY's goals include reasearch in the following areas:

1) Changing snow and ice conditions - reductions in size and mass of glaciers and ice sheets, duration of snow cover and reductions in area and thickness of sea ice, plus consequences and global impacts - effect on sea level and water for personal consumption or agriculture, permafrost melting that may release additional greenhouse gases, warming of polar oceans and impact to marine ecosystems and global fisheries...

2) Impacts to the daily living environment of more than 4 million people who live in Northern communities - living environment, natural resources and food systems, health challenges related to pollutants and pressures of development and commercialism...

3) Opportunities to collectively explore the unknown and to develop new concepts and theories in order to advance our knowledge for better predictions, assessments, recommendations...

Discovery through international collaboration and partnership will mark this 4th IPY at a most critical time for this planet.