GDC Project: GIIPSYGlobal Inter-agency IPY Polar Snapshot Year

The 2007-2008 International Polar Year (IPY) provided an international framework for understanding high-latitude climate change and predicting world wide impacts. Recent and well-documented observations of the sometimes dramatically changing components of earth’s cryosphere and particularly at high latitudes made IPY science investigations particularly timely and relevant to scientists, policy makers and the general public. IPY investigations required commitments of resources ranging from those which support individual field activities to those which require the international coordination of complex systems and their operations. The documents listed here discuss the requirements to obtain spaceborne snapshots of the Polar Regions and key high latitude processes. Documents have been prepared by the international cryospheric community under the auspices of the approved IPY project titled the Global Inter-agency IPY Polar Snapshot Year (GIIPSY).