The International Polar Years (IPYs) are meant to provide unbiased research and progress - a great leap forward - for polar regions and wider global issues. Starting in 1882 they are organized app. every 50 years by the international community, and the last IPY just finished in 2007/8 as one of the largest internationally coordinated modern research initiatives in the world.

While the world moves fully into the Anthropocene, many new and dramatic changes in the polar regions - any region initially covered by ice (e.g. Arctic, Antarctic and Hindu Kush Himalaya) - warrant a new and urgent IPY to tackle truly global research questions relevant for mankind.

As conservation is time-critical here I elaborate on the value of IPYs and why a new one is needed so urgently, not just by 2057 or so. This IPY should be global and fully involve the global community and modern science questions for cutting-edge sustainable governance and policy benefitting mankind and Mother Earth through polar regions.

Citations (in reverse order to reflect podcast content):

The International Polar Year IPY (no date) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Polar_Year

The Guardian (2021) Global heating pushes tropical regions towards limits of human livability. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability

Huettmann, F. (2007) The digital teaching legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY): Details of a present to the global village for achieving sustainability. Eds M. Tjoa and R.R. Wagner. Proceedings 18th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA) 3-7 September 2007, Regensburg, Germany. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA. Pages 673-677.

Huettmann, F. (ed) (2012) Protection of the Three Poles, Springer Tokyo, Japan, p. 337

Huettmann F, Yu Artukhin, O. Gilg, and G. Humphries(2011) Predictions of 27 Arctic pelagic seabird distributions using public environmental variables, assessed with colony data: a first digital IPY and GBIF open access synthesis platform. Marine Biodiversity 41: 141-179 DOI 10.1007/s12526-011-0083-2

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