Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
S. Fred Singer, and Ernest H. Vestine.
18
Envisioned as an updated version
of the International Polar Years of 1882- 83 and 1932- 33, the IGY had a
major polar science component but focused primarily on the physics of
the earth's atmosphere. In fact, with projects in meteorology, climatology,
ionospheric physics, aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, and solar activity, the
IGY agenda defined what would become known more broadly as the field
of “atmospheric science.”
19
Scientists designed the IGY to tackle a range of large-scale research
interests, but from the beginning it was also a deeply political affair. Not
surprisingly, in the international arena the politics of the IGY revolved pri-
marily around Cold War U.S.-Soviet relations. These politics played out
in the language of institutional acronyms.
20
The IGY was administered by
the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), with support from
the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Under
Stalin, however, the Soviet Union had decided not to adhere to the ICSU,
and that decision persisted through the process of “de-Stalinization” in
the 1950s (the Soviets did belong to the International Astronomical Union
and the WMO, however). The Soviet Union was thus not included in the
original list of twenty-six invited nations, and the U.S. National Com-
mittee for the IGY had to persuade the ICSU to send the Soviets a special
invitation.
21
The Soviets took eighteen months to accept, and once they
did, their cooperation was limited. Soviet officials resisted proposals to
allow scientifically oriented overflights by foreign nationals within Soviet
borders, and Soviet scientists refused to discuss their nation's rocketry and
artificial satellite programs. The rest of the Soviet IGY program was every
bit as extensive as the United States' proposed plan— perhaps more so—
but cooperation between the two superpowers took a back seat to what
IGY boosters spun as healthy scientific competition between the com-
munist East and the capitalist West.
22
The recent detonation of hydrogen
bombs by both sides— the Americans' “Ivy Mike” in 1952, the Soviets' “Joe
4” in 1953— lent this competition a certain urgency.
23
In the United States, popular concerns about nuclear weapons testing
and the perceived gap between the quality of American and Soviet science
gave American scientific leaders like Revelle, Berkner, and U.S. Weather
Bureau chief Harry Wexler the latitude to push for a comprehensive pro-
gram of geophysical research for the IGY— including research on CO
2
and
