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Published online 25 February 2009 | Nature 457, 1072-1077 (2009) | doi:10.1038/4571072a
News Feature
International Polar Year: In from the Cold
As scientists celebrate the end of the International Polar Year, they see causes for concern on the frozen horizon, reports Quirin Schiermeier.
It is not often that inaction earns a spot in history, but a French research team has managed to write itself into the annals of polar exploration by simply waiting — albeit in a perilous spot. The record-breaking feat happened on board a privately owned French schooner, Tara, which was frozen solid in thick Arctic pack ice.
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This article and this week's editorial (457, p1057) correctly point out the critical need for a sustained archive of the data collected during the International Polar Year. Quirin Schiermeier reports that the "IPY data-management committee is sorting out the options for setting up a fully integrated data-sharing system". The primary mechanism for this data sharing is the International Polar Year Data and Information Service (IPYDIS). The IPYDIS is a global partnership of data centers, archives, and networks working to ensure proper stewardship of IPY and related data (http://ipydis.org). We seek to create a union catalog providing access to all IPY data distributed in archives around the world. As you rightly emphasize, sustained support for this activity is a critical challenge for nations and the international science community. Efforts by Australia, Canada, China, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, the UK, the US, and others have led to the creation of an an initial system, but in many ways the work to present the IPY data legacy has just begun. The IPY Data Policy has encouraged increased and more timely data release, yet data sharing remains a substantial challenge for polar science. We need to build of our success and extend the effort to a broader community. To this end, the International Council of Science has established a new project entitled "The Polar Information Commons (PIC): Establishing the Framework for Long-term Stewardship of Polar Data and Information". CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, leads this initiative to establish a sustainable long-term framework for the preservation and access of polar data. We build on recent ?commons? approaches in other disciplines that recognize information as a common societal good. Historically, society has managed to jointly share and administer common property, such as fisheries and telecommunication bandwidth, but to sustain these sort of common resources requires ongoing societal support and care. A ?commons? approach can then strengthen incentives for scientists, research institutions, and nations to contribute and document data, reduce barriers to data sharing, and provide a focal point for community data assessment efforts. These data activities should be a significant contribution to the scientific legacy of IPY as well as an instructive case study for the development of a sustainable data systems across disciplines.