MARCH 23Every year, on 23 March, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), its 187 Members and the worldwide meteorological community celebrate World Meteorological Day. This Day commemorates the entry into force, on that date in 1950, of the WMO Convention creating the Organization. Subsequently, in 1951, WMO was designated a specialized agency of the United Nations System.
In 2005, on the occasion of its fifty-seventh session, the WMO Executive Council decided that the theme for the year 2007 would be “Polar meteorology: understanding global impacts”, in recognition of the importance of, and as a contribution to, International Polar Year (IPY) 2007‑2008, which is being co-sponsored by WMO and the International Council for Science (ICSU). To ensure that researchers can work in both polar regions during the summer and winter months, the event will actually be held from March 2007 to March 2009. The fundamental concept of the IPY is an intensive burst of internationally coordinated, interdisciplinary scientific research and observations focused on the Earth’s polar regions and their far-reaching global effects.
The International Polar Year 2007-2008 will, therefore, be addressing a wide range of physical, biological and social issues, closely or indirectly linked to the polar regions. The urgency and complexity of the changes being observed in the polar regions will demand a broad and integrated scientific approach. Enhanced international collaboration and open partnerships resulting from this landmark scientific effort will, no doubt, stimulate and facilitate unrestricted data access and cross-cutting research initiatives. Through an ample outreach effort, IPY will also represent a major step forward in making scientific knowledge available and accessible to the general public. At the same time, a foremost concern will be the fact that the impacts derived from the polar regions are also important to the global climate system as a whole, so that many changes detected at the higher latitudes will also be found to have significant impacts on the sustainable development of all societies, regardless of geographic latitude.
Meteorology has long been recognized as a paradigm of a science without frontiers and polar meteorology is perhaps the ultimate example of this principle. Therefore, as the international meteorological community celebrates World Meteorological Day 2007, it is my hope that all Members of the World Meteorological Organization will recognize the importance of polar meteorology and its potential global impacts on their lives, their security and their prosperity. Moreover, it is also my expectation that the outcomes of this endeavour will contribute to a better understanding of climate variability and climate change, as well as to the development of much needed climate applications to address some of the major challenges of the 21st century.
Meteorology has long been recognized as a paradigm of a science without frontiers and polar meteorology is perhaps the ultimate example of this principle. Therefore, as the international meteorological community celebrates World Meteorological Day 2007, it is my hope that all Members of the World Meteorological Organization will recognize the importance of polar meteorology and its potential global impacts on their lives, their security and their prosperity. Moreover, it is also my expectation that the outcomes of this endeavour will contribute to a better understanding of climate variability and climate change, as well as to the development of much needed climate applications to address some of the major challenges of the 21st century.
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