Getting ready for the IPY: International Polar Year (2007)

Climate change has shown to greatly affect Polar Regions. However, more research is needed to fully understand how these ecosystems work. There have been several attempts to unite scientists from all over the world to better contribute to the knowledge of the Polar Regions. The last initiative was the International Geophysical year in 1957-58. The IPY in 2007-08 will attempt to narrow the gap between generations of scientists as well as increase public awareness on the vulnerability of the Polar Regions.

The University of Alberta is currently working on a website concerning projects that have been done so far in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. This website provides a useful geographical database and map server by locating the different projects and showing the ranges they cover. In this way, people can see what has been done. Researchers can not only see their own projects but also find useful contacts to work in projects of their interest.

Creators of the website are working on representing not only Canadian lead projects, but also international IPY initiative. Therefore, this website acts also as a promotion tool for the IPY Canadian Secretariat and the International Program Office (IPY IPO).

Both the Arctic and the Antarctic projects are represented on the interactive map server. ArcView 3.2 is used to create the shapefiles of each project. Arcmap 9 is then used to transfer the shapefiles into the maps shown in the website. Finally, ArcIMS is used as a server transition to create the website.

Hat tip to a O. in the Intro GIS course.

Comments are closed.