Chairs: Mark Parsons and Taco de Bruin, co-chairs of the International Polar Year Data Policy and Management Subcommittee
The legacy of the International Geophysical Year and past International Polar Years is in the scientific data collected. The upcoming International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY), co sponsored by the International Council of Science and the World Meteorological Organization, will result in an unprecedented and very diverse collection of physical, life, and social science data from the Polar Regions. To realize the full scientific and interdisciplinary utility of these data it is essential to consider the design of data management systems early in the experimental planning process. The primary means by which IPY is addressing data management is through the creation of a Data Policy and Management Subcommittee and by endorsing an IPY Data and Information Service (IPYDIS) as described in the IPY Framework document. This session will review the initial work of the subcommittee and IPYDIS how they fit into existing international data structures. Members of the subcommittee and the IPYDIS will present talks that also address international data policy considerations, cross-discipline data interoperability, data development and assimilation, and historical data and data rescue.
During the IPY, roughly 50,000 investigators from over 60 countries organized in over 200 international clusters of projects will endeavor to study nearly every aspect of the poles. Projects range from studies of trace gases in the oceans and their impacts on primary productivity to dynamic models of ice sheets assimilating data from remote sensing and field observations to the observations and effects of environmental change on human beings and much more. The data from these projects when combined with the IPY objectives of interdisciplinary science and international exchange will present a huge data management challenge and opportunity to greatly enhance international data management collaboration.