IGY and the Antarctic Treaty

The usefulness of coordinating polar science efforts was recognized in

1879 by the International Polar Commission meeting
in Hamburg, Germany, and thus the 11 participating nations organized
the First International Polar Year (1882–83). Most work was planned
for the better-known Arctic, and, of the four geomagnetic
and weather stations scheduled for Antarctic regions, only the German
station on South Georgia materialized. The decision was made at that
time to organize similar programs every 50 years. In 1932–33
the Second International Polar Year took place, with 34 nations
participating, but no Antarctic expeditions were mounted.
The development of IGY
The idea for more frequent programs was born in 1950, when it was
proposed that scientists take advantage of increasing technological
developments, interest in polar regions, and, not the least, the
maximum sunspot activity expected in 1957–58. (The earlier, second
polar year was a year of sunspot minimum.) As a vast intelligence
gathering exercise, the idea also had covert political support. What
was then called the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU;
known as the International Science Council [ISC] as of July 2018)
adopted the proposal, and in 1952 ICSU appointed a committee that
was to become known as the Comité Spécial de l’Année Géophysique
Internationale (CSAGI) to coordinate IGY planning. Plans widened to
include the scientific study of the whole Earth, and eventually 67
nations showed interest in joining. Plans were laid for simultaneous
observations, at all angles, of the Sun, weather, the aurora,
the magnetic field, the ionosphere, and cosmic rays. An ICSU
committee meeting in Rome in 1954 especially emphasized two
programs, outer space and Antarctica. Whereas in the first polar year
observations were confined to ground level and in the second to about
33,000 feet by balloon, IGY saw the Soviet Union launch the first
artificial satellite Sputnik in 1957, an event that triggered the “space
race” between the Soviet Union and the United States and started a
new era in space exploration. Several international data centres were
established to collect all observations and make them freely available
for analysis to scientists of any nation.