The legacy of the International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) includes advances in open data and meaningful progress towards interoperability of data, systems, and standards. Enabled by metadata brokering technologies and by the growing adoption of international metadata standards, federated data search welcomes diversity in Arctic data and recognizes the value of expertise in community data repositories. Federated search enables specialized data holdings to be discovered by broader audiences and complements the role of metadata registries such as the Global Change Master Directory, providing interoperability across the Arctic web-of-repositories.