was born out of the idea of using the new technological capabilities stimulated in World War II and after—ranging from rockets and radar to the first computers—to explore heretofore inaccessible places where “metal loses its strength, rubber breaks, and diesel fluid becomes viscous like honey,” and thus generate much greater, deeper insight into how the earth worked and its interaction with the sun. It bloomed into a cross-disciplinary network of several thousand scientists from more than 70 countries. The earth’s processes—from its core and the seabed floor to the outer reaches of the atmosphere—would be mapped and measured in thousands of experiments coordinated on a global basis and conducted in a much more sophisticated and consistent way than ever before. Some of these experiments would involve Herculean physical feats of technology and endurance.9
The IGY was a sort of extended leap year, for it actually ran from July 1957 through December 1958, a period chosen to coincide with a fever point of solar activity. This global exploration brought forth an extraordinary body of new knowledge on everything from the flows of the deep waters of the oceans and the nature of the sea floor to the intense high-altitude radiation that girdles the earth. Glaciers constituted one of the major topics, continuing the fascination they held for scientists going back to Saussure and Tyndall.
“OKAY, LET’S GO”: THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF WEATHER
Then there was the weather. The IGY brought an unprecedented concentration of scientific talent to bear on better understanding weather. In addition to scientific curiosity there were also important strategic considerations. The Second World War had scarcely ended a decade earlier, and time again during that conflict, weather had proved of decisive importance on the battlefield. In western Russia, winter’s icy grip—what Russians called General Winter—decimated the Nazi armies as they besieged Leningrad and assaulted Stalingrad.
But nothing had so forcefully underlined the strategic importance of better comprehension of the weather than D-Day, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. The “Longest Day,” as it was called, had been preceded by the “longest hours”—hours and hours of soul-wrenching stress, uncertainty, and fear in the headquarters along the southern coast of England, as indecisive hourly briefings followed indecisive hourly briefings, with the “go/no go” decision held hostage to a single factor: the weather.
“The weather in this country is practically unpredictable,” the commander in chief Dwight Eisenhower had complained while anxiously waiting for the next briefing. The forecasts were for very bad weather. How could 175,000 men be put at risk in such dreadful circumstances? At best, the reliability of the weather forecasts went out no more than two days; the stormy weather over the English Channel reduced the reliability to 12 hours. So uncertain was the weather that at the last moment the invasion scheduled for June 5 was postponed, and ships that had already set sail were called back just in time before the Germans could detect them.
Finally, on the morning of June 5, the chief meteorologist said, “I’ll give you some good news.” The forecasts indicated that a brief break of sorts in the weather was at hand. Eisenhower sat silently for 30 or 40 seconds, in his mind balancing success against failure and the risk of making a bad decision. Finally, he stood up and gave the order, “Okay, let’s go.” With that was launched into the barely marginal weather of June 6, 1944, the greatest armada in the history of the world. Fortunately, the German weather forecasters did not see the break and assured the German commander, Erwin Rommel, that he did not have to worry about an invasion.10
A decade later, knowing better than anyone else the strategic importance of improved weather knowledge, Eisenhower, now president, gave the “let’s go” order for the International Geophysical Year.
The IGY was designed to deepen knowledge not only about weather but also climate. As Roger Revelle wrote, among the “main objectives of the International Geophysical Year” was to gain a deeper understanding of climate change—what had triggered the coming and retreat of the Ice Age, that “dark age of snow and ice”—and the ability to predict future climate change.
Researchers did indeed discover and confirm some of the planet’s most important regulatory cycles that affected climate, including the impact of ocean and air currents in transmitting heat. But other elements also shaped the climactic system, including, some suspected, greenhouse gases. One of the organizers speculated that the earth might be “approaching a man-made warm period, simply because we are belching carbon dioxide into the air