Joint meeting of the Executive
Committees of IASC and the
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) at the
IPY 2010 Conference in Oslo,
Norway, June 2010.
Photo: IASC Secretariat
SCAR and IASC worked closely together as mem-
ary 2008 the organizations formed the Joint IASC/
bers (ex officio) of the IPY Joint Committee that
SCAR Bipolar Action Group (BipAG), chaired initially
planned and implemented IPY 2007-2008. Both
by Heinz Miller (AWI, Germany) to advise both bod-
organizations encouraged the development of the
ies on (a) how best to develop collaborative bipolar
ocean observing systems called for by the IPY - an
activities in the future, and (b) how best to nurture
integrated Arctic Ocean Observing System (iAOOS)
the IPY 2007/2008 legacy. BipAG met in St Peters-
and a Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS)
burg on 8 July 2008, and in Oslo on 15-16 October
- which will be important contributions to under-
2009, and prepared advice for the management
standing and forecasting polar climate change.
bodies of its two parents. In 2010, BipAG´s terms of
SCAR invited IASC to jointly sponsor SCAR´s
reference were modified to focus on bipolar issues,
planned Open Science Conference in St. Petersburg,
while the SCAR and IASC EXCOMs agreed to jointly
Russia (8-11 July 2008), which was eventually ad-
address IPY legacy issues.
opted and co-sponsored by ICSU and WMO as the
1st IPY conference. SCAR and IASC continued to
To effectively address the challenges and efficiently
work together as co-sponsors (with others) of the
use available resources, a new and novel framework
2nd IPY science conference (Oslo, Norway,