1. The Background In the 1950s a small group of eminent

• Main Authors: Key Igy, Geomagnetism Aeronomy, Physicists Including James Van Allen, Viel Berkner, Siegfried Frederick Singer, Antonio Meloni, Lucilla Alfonsi
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: IPY
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.624.162; http://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/5119/1/AoG Meloni-Alfonsi2009.pdf

Sidney Chapman, realized that the peaceful post war time was a good occasion to start a strong, internationally coordinated, scientific program for a new global geophysical endeav-our. The time was right also due to the availabil-ity of new technologies: rockets, radar and nu-merous other geophysical techniques which had been developed during the war. Later on several other scientists from all over the world agreed to start this enterprise and, supported by the experience of the previous two Internation-al Polar Years, IPYs, in 1882/83 and in 1932/33, agreed that the time was right for a new coordinated scientific effort (Buedeler, 1957; Gerson, 1958). Although the second IPY had occurred less than 50 years earlier, a reprisal after 25 years was motivated by the an-ticipated sunspot maximum of the 11-yr solar cycle in 1957-1958. The benefit was particular-ly strong for Geomagnetism and Aeronomy dis-ciplines because variations of Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere are driven by sunspot related activity. The International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) endorsed the proposal and broadened its scope to incor-