The achievements of the IGY
In: From Pole to Pole. Springer: Heidelberg; Berlin. ISSN 2193-7338; e-ISSN 2193-7346, more
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| 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. |
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