International Geophysical Year, 1957–58

Insignificant change in Antarctic snowfall since the International Geophysical Year.

Antarctic snowfall exhibits substantial variability over a range of time scales, with consequent impacts on global sea level and the mass balance of the ice sheets. To assess how snowfall has affected the thickness of the ice sheets in Antarctica and to provide an extended perspective, we derived a 50-year time series of snowfall accumulation over the continent by combining model simulations an...

Polar tropospheric ozone depletion events observed in the International Geophysical Year of 1958

The Royal Society expedition to Antarctica established a base at Halley Bay, in support of the International Geophysical Year of 1957–1958. Surface ozone was measured during 1958 only, using a prototype Brewer-Mast sonde. The envelope of maximum ozone was an annual cycle from 10 ppbv in January to 22 ppbv in August. These values are 35% less at the start of the year and 15% less at the end than...

Amateur scientists, the international geophysical year, and the ambitions of Fred Whipple.

The contribution of amateur scientists to the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was substantial, especially in the arena of spotting artificial satellites. This article examines how Fred L. Whipple and his colleagues recruited satellite spotters for Moonwatch, a program for amateur scientists initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. At the same time, however, the...

Review Iii, Submitted to Geophysical Journal International

We investigate the deformation induced by water pressure variations in hydrologicallyactive natural fractures, and recorded by tiltmeters and strainmeters. The deformation associated with a single fracture is derived using finite-element modeling (FEM). A range in fracture geometries is explored, first to highlight the sensitivity of each geometrical parameter to the deformation, and secondly t...

Geophysical Turbulence Geophysical Turbulence