The last time there was an International Polar Year (IPY), the world was a very different place. In 1957, at the height of the cold war, the poles were less a place for intriguing scientific discoveries than for political manoeuvring between the Soviet Union and the United States. Yet 1957–58 marked the third International Polar Year (the first two were in 1882 and 1932) and the first International Geophysical Year — a significant landmark, with hindsight, for global scientific collaboration.

The International Geophysical Year yielded several great scientific discoveries, many of which were inexorably linked to cold-war imperatives. James Van Allen discovered the belts of radiation surrounding Earth with the first US satellite, Explorer I, sent up in response to the Soviet Union's Sputnik. And the US nuclear submarine Nautilus, on a top-secret voyage, became the first vessel to visit the North Pole under the ice.

This time round, the political context of the IPY is dominated by climate change. Tasks for the coming year include taking detailed measurements of melting sea ice in the Arctic (see page 133) and a hunt for the best records yet of past climate change in the Antarctic (see page 126).

But scientists seeking support for these missions have got off to a rocky start, at least in the United States, as the result of a budget impasse that briefly froze spending for the National Science Foundation at 2006 levels. By January, last-minute negotiations had yielded an extra $334 million for the agency, including money it needs to grant IPY proposals in the coming year. But many of the scientists involved are still awaiting confirmation that their projects will go ahead, and their frustration is becoming palpable.

Elsewhere, the outlook is more certain. Canada, for instance, has pulled together all the funding for a large international programme to study the circumpolar flaw lead, an area of water that separates the bulk of the Arctic sea ice from the ice at the coast. Canada has also taken a welcome lead in involving indigenous peoples in its research programmes. The interdisciplinary ArcticNet project, based at the Université Laval in Quebec, aims to disseminate information gleaned about changes in the polar regions to the communities that are most directly affected.

The polar year represents the best chance to get climate-monitoring networks up and running.

These international efforts may alleviate some of the problems that have long plagued Arctic research, such as the decline of meteorological monitoring stations. The collapse of the Soviet Union has caused numerous observing stations to close. One target for the IPY is to upgrade some key sites and monitor them over the long term; the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for instance, is upgrading its climate-monitoring laboratory at Barrow, Alaska, and plans to do the same for stations in Eureka, Canada, and Tiksi, Russia. Such observatories are the only way to move forward with collecting the long-term data needed to monitor climate change.

The polar-year celebration represents, among other things, the best chance to get these climate-monitoring networks up and running. Let's hope that the funding difficulties are ironed out in time, and that this opportunity is used to produce a legacy worthy of International Polar Year 2007.