The International Geophysical Year

The IGY is generally considered to have originated within a group of international geophysicists, with Sydney Chapman of the ICSU being one of the principal figures. ICSU created the CSAGI with Chapman as President.

The major fields of study of the IGY were solar activity, meteorology, geomagnetism, gravity and seismology, oceanography, glaciers, rockets and satellites. The Australian Academy of Science was the focus of the Australian IGY program and when the Bureau was invited to join an Academy committee for the IGY in July 1955 I was nominated as the Bureau's representative. The committee was involved with general CSAGI matters but with special attention to CSAGI's SCAR. The Academy had also formed an Upper Atmosphere Research Committee on which I represented the Bureau.

The ANARE formed a physics sub-committee in 1955 which also became involved in the IGY programs to be carried out at Australian Antarctic stations.

George Trefry at Woomera was deeply involved in the IGY rockets program with which my former Bureau colleague Bryan Rofe was responsible as a member of the staff of LRWE.

I attended a CSAGI conference and a meeting of SCAR in Moscow in July/August 1958, meetings of SCAR at Wellington, NZ, in October 1961 and in the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge in August/September 1960. The organisational items on the agenda of these meetings were necessary but somewhat boring. The scientific discussions were of great interest and will be discussed later.

Bureau of Meteorology