Work done according to IGY Programme

In the past period the research work under-taken arcording to the programme of the International Geophysical Year has yielded its first results.

Filmowe portrety Stanisława Siedleckiego (1912–2002) na tle Svalbardu. Fragmenty wizualnej historii nauki

Stanisław Siedlecki’s (1912–2002) Film Portraits against the Backdrop of Svalbard. Vignettes from the Visual History of Science The article offers a new perspective on Stanisław Siedlecki’s biography through visual history, with a particular emphasis on film history. The connections between Siedlecki’s life and the cinema can be grouped in three sections: 1. films starring Siedlecki, 2. films by Siedlecki and 3. films about Siedlecki. The film Do Ziemi Torella (To Torell Land) represents the pre-war period; the post-war period is marked by Siedlecki’s collaboration with Jarosław Brzozowcki on the making of Skroplone Powietrze (Liquefied Air) and Wieliczka – both from 1946. In the International Geophysical Year 1957/1958, Siedlecki led the Polish polar expedition, during which the visual material was created. He appeared in all three ‘roles’ (as a co-writer, protagonist, and consultant) in Jarosław Brzozowski’s film W Zatoce Białych Niedźwiedzi (In the Polar Bear Bay). He consulted polar films until the early 1990s. There are also two film biographies (portraits) of Siedlecki by Wanda Rollna and Iwona Bartólewska. The analysis of this material has also shed new light on the visual narration of the Polish polar expeditions in the 20th century.

Total column ozone in New Zealand and in the UK in the 1950s

Total column ozone measurements reach back almost a century. Historical column ozone data are important not only for obtaining a long-term perspective of changes of the ozone layer but arguably also as diagnostics of lower-stratospheric or tropopause-level flow in time periods of sparse upper-air observations. With the exception of a few high-quality records such as that from Arosa, Switzerland, ozone science has almost exclusively focused on data since the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957–1958, although earlier series exist. In the early 2000s, we digitised and re-evaluated many pre-IGY series. Here we add a series from Wellington, New Zealand, from 1951 to 1959. We re-evaluated the data from the original observation sheets and performed quality control analysis, and here we present the data. The day-to-day variability can be used to assess the quality of reanalysis products, since the data cover a region and time period with only few upper-air data. Comparison with total column ozone in the reanalyses ERA-PreSAT (which assimilates upper-air data) and 20CRv3 and CERA-20C (which do not assimilate upper-air data) shows high correlations with all three. Although trend quality is doubtful (no calibration information and no intercomparisons are available), combining the record with other available data (including historical data from Australian locations) allows a 70-year perspective of ozone changes over the southern mid-latitudes. The series will be available from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Data Centre. Finally, we also present a short series from Downham Market, UK, covering November 1950 to October 1951, and publish it with further historical data series that were previously described but not published.

Sixtieth anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (1957–2017) – contribution of the Soviet Union

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was the most significant international scientific event in geophysical sciences in the history of mankind. This was the largest international experiment that brought together about 300 000 scientists from 67 countries. Well-planned activity of national and international committees was organized for the first time. The history of the IGY organization and complex international experiments in planetary geophysics conducted within its program are discussed in this article. Special attention is given to the estimation of the significance of this project for developing worldwide geophysical research.

Total column ozone in New Zealand and in the UK in the 1950s

Total column ozone measurements reach back almost a century. Historical column ozone data are important to obtain a long term perspective of changes of the ozone layer, but arguably also as diagnostics of lower stratospheric or tropopause-level flow in time periods of sparse upper-air observations. With the exception of few high quality records such as that from Arosa, Switzerland, ozone science has almost exclusively focused on data since the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957, although earlier series exist. In the early 2000s, we have digitised and re-evaluated many pre-IGY series. Here we add a series from Wellington, New Zealand, 1951–1959. We re-evaluated the data from the original observation sheets, performed quality control analysis and present the data. The day-to-day variability can be used to assess the quality of reanalysis products, since the data cover a region and time period with only few upper-air data. Comparison with total column ozone in the reanalyses ERA-PreSAT (which assimilates upper-air data), 20CRv3 and CERA20C (which do not assimilate upper-air data) shows high correlations with all three. Although trend quality is doubtful (no calibration information and no intercomparisons are available), combining the record with other available data (including historical data from Australian locations) allows a 70-year perspective of ozone changes over the southern midlatitudes. The series is available from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Data Centre. Finally, we also present a short series from Downham Market, UK, covering November 1950 to October 1951, and publish it with further historical data series that were previously described but not published.

To the history of Antarctica: from discovery to research

Systematic study of Antarctica began only a century and a half after its discovery by the Russian expedition of F. Bellingshausen and M. Lazarev on the sloops “Vostok” and “Mirny” on January 16 (20), 1820. Since the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1956, regular studies of ice cover, subglacial topography, geomorphology of the surrounding seas and bottom sediments, as well as marine and continental biological communities have begun on the continent and coastal waters. Scientists from the Institute of Oceanology took part in the first Russian Antarctic expeditions. Their work gave new knowledge about the nature of Antarctica and largely determined the scientific direction of its future research.

A benchmark for the environment: big science and ‘artificial’ geophysics in the global 1950s

Security concerns during the early Cold War prompted United States strategists to solicit worldwide assistance in studying Earth’s physical environment. Comprehensive geophysical knowledge required cooperation between researchers on every part of the planet, leading practitioners to tout transnational earth science – despite direct military applications in an age of submarines and ballistic missiles – as a non-political form of peaceful universalism. This article examines the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year as a powerful fulcrum in the transfer of ideas about Earth’s global environment from Western security establishments to conservationists worldwide. For eighteen months, tens of thousands of researchers across every continent pooled resources for data collection to create a scientific benchmark for future comparisons. Illuminating Earth as dynamic and interconnected, participants robustly conceptualized humanity’s emergence as a geophysical force, capable of ‘artificially’ modifying the natural world. Studies of anthropogenic geophysics, including satellites, nuclear fallout, and climate change, conditioned the global rise of environmentalism.

Geophysical Datascapes of the Cold War: Politics and Practices of International Data Centers

The International Geophysical Year or IGY (1957–1958) was conceived against a background of nuclear secrecy intensified by Cold War political tensions, but the IGY provided the impulse for constructing the distinct data regime which took hold in Soviet and American World Data Centers in the 1950s and 1960s — a regime that turned data into a form of currency traded by the political players in the Cold War. This essay examines that data regime in detail by taking up the issues of secrecy and access, sharing and exchange, accumulation and archiving, and finally the handling and use of the IGY data. Features of the IGY’s data centers, such as the notion of centralized storage of open data freely accessible to users from around the world, played an important role in establishing the practices of data governance that continue today in the form of Big Data. These practices, however, were outcomes of the politics, visions, and accompanying technologies that were embedded in and supported by the political culture of the Cold War. By revisiting the drawbacks and challenges that accompanied that Big Data moment in the early Cold War, this essay explores the multiple meanings of data and the ways in which data circulated in a veiled Cold War political economy that ran parallel to their use (or neglect) in the pursuit of knowledge.