IHY Town Forum During the Fall AGU Meeting

The town forum will be used to inform and request input/participation from the AGU scientific community of two synergistic and integrated efforts which are now in the planning stages. These are the International Heliosphysical Year (IHY) and International Polar Year (IPY) planned to commence in 2007 and run for several more. The year 2007 will be the 125th anniversary of the initial IPY and the 50th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) thus is appropriate to begin to plan another effort.

The International Heliosphysical Year (IHY) has been proposed to obtain a coordinated set of observations to study at the largest scale the solar generated events that affect life and climate on Earth. The International Polar Year has been proposed to address the causes and effects of climatic variability--air/sea/ice interactions and lithosphere dynamics--evolution and history of crust and sedimentary cover.

Both endeavors will require an integrated, holistic system approach encompassing a wide range of disciplines and new and improved technologies for long-term measurements on the seabed, in the water column and space over all seasons with new platforms. Coordination and collaboration with international scientific organizations such as AOSB, SCAR, IASC, SCOSTEP (Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics) and especially their program on Climate and Weather of the Sun-Earth System (CAWSES), ICSU and greater AGU scientific community will be necessary.