IGY Bulletin, Number 2, August 1957 - Status Report: Meteorology, Oceanography & Glaciology

Finally moving on to the SECOND issue of the IGY Bulletin, for August, 1957.

IGY Bulletin #2, August, 1957, p. 1

This issue is 15 pages, comprising five articles. You'll find my scan of the issue here.

The articles in this issue are:

1. Status Report: Meteorology, Oceanography & Glaciology
2. World Days During IGY
3. Rockets & Satellites: Radio Tracking System
4. CSAGI and the International Geophysical Year
5. Antarctic Notes

The first article highlights three more areas of planned IGY studies, which I've again numbered according to the original list, and bulleted some of the key endeavors.

2. Meteorology objectives included:

• studying major atmospheric circulation patterns, and latitudinal heat transfer
• adding extra weather stations to improve global coverage, especially in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, by making measurements at the surface and at altitudes using balloons and aircraft
• coordinating Antarctic measurements via the IGY Antarctic Weather Central at the Little America station
• developing a pole-to-pole chain of meteorological stations in a longitude band between 70-80º W (passing through the eastern U.S.)

7. Glaciology objectives included:

• investigating mass budgets of glaciers (accumulation vs. ablation), and mass and energy transfers between glaciers and their environments
• calculating volumes of polar ice sheets and of sea ice, including seismic surveys to determine ice sheet thicknesses
• determining patterns of regional climate variations and their historic patterns

8. Oceanography objectives included:

• better understanding of three-dimensional oceanic circulation patterns via shipborne measurements at the surface and at depth
• examining heat and water transfer between the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, and other components of the hydrosphere
• improving information on sea level rise at various time scales, using many more observation points
• installing observatories on more remote islands around the world, including drifting sea ice stations in the Arctic

These days we often use the rubric of Earth systems science to teach geosciences. The different "components" of the Earth system are interconnected in many and complex ways. These "spheres" include the geosphere (solid Earth), hydrosphere (water), cryosphere (ice), atmosphere, and biosphere. If you like, add the pedosphere (soil) and ionosphere/magnetosphere. We can roughly break down the 13 IGY areas of study into these "spheres" as follows:

• geosphere - geomagnetism; longitudes and latitudes; seismology; gravity
• hydrosphere - oceanography
• cryosphere - glaciology
• atmosphere - meteorology; nuclear radiation
• biosphere
• pedosphere
• ionosphere/magnetosphere (and on into space) - aurora and airglow; geomagnetism (again); ionosphere; solar activity; cosmic rays; rockets and satellites
• other - World Days and communications

This diagram suggests the complex interrelationships of the various "spheres":

NASA (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30988)

The interaction of these spheres is an important part of contemporary climate science, and understanding climate change.