The first International Polar Year, 1882–83

Abstract

Karl Weyprecht has left an unforgettable record of polar exploration, but has himself tended to be forgotten. His fame rests not so much with his work in the Arctic, which included the discovery of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, but on the series of international scientific programmes which he initiated in 1875 with the first International Polar Year (IPY), 1882–83. International scientific programmes can be traced back to 1751, when observations of the parallaxes of the Moon, Mars and Venus were made at six stations in the Northern Hemisphere and at one in the Southern. The most recent, the World Climate Research Programme, organized jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), began in 1980.