The Polar Geospatial Center is a research center at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

's College of Science and Engineering funded by the

National Science Foundation's National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

Office of Polar Programs. Founded in 2007, the Polar Geospatial Center "provides geospatial support, mapping, and GIS/remote sensing solutions to researchers and logistics groups in the polar science community." It is currently directed by Paul Morin.

History

The Polar Geospatial Center (PGC) was founded in 2007 and was originally called the Antarctic Geospatial Information Center (AGIC). In its early days, the AGIC's goal was to provide basic mapping and GIS services for the

United States Antarctic Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

(USAP), and was only a two-man project. As time went on, the program's credibility and size expanded. By 2010, the program had over a half dozen team members. In March 2011, the program was "classified as a National Science Foundation cooperative agreement" and adapted to take responsibility for

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

as well as Antarctic operations, hence the name change to PGC.

Services

The PGC's current goal is to support federally funded researchers in the Arctic and Antarctic. The PGC utilizes

geospatial Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also ca ...

and

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Eart ...

technology to work with research teams and solve problems. Some specific examples of services are listed below.

Image delivery & analysis

The PGC has a large collection of both satellite imagery as well as aerial photography at various resolutions. The PGC provides commercial satellite imagery for United States federally-funded polar researchers.

Digital Elevation Models

The PGC provides high-resolution

digital elevation model A digital elevation model (DEM) or digital surface model (DSM) is a 3D computer graphics representation of elevation data to represent terrain or overlaying objects, commonly of a planet, moon, or asteroid. A "global DEM" refers to a discrete g ...

s (DEMs) derived from stereoscopic optical imagery. The ArcticDEM project, an 8-meter posting pan-Arctic DEM, was announced by then-President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

on September 3, 2015. ArcticDEM has already been successfully applied to automatically explore and classify glacial landforms.

Custom map requests

The PGC employs individuals skilled in

cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an i ...

and GIS to create custom maps of areas for researchers preparing to head into the field.

Map collection

The PGC Map Catalog hosts thousands of Antarctic and Arctic maps in digital form. These maps are from many different organizations and periods in time. Many of these maps are publicly available, some are not and may be provided upon request.

References

{{University of Minnesota campus __FORCETOC__ University of Minnesota Science and technology in Antarctica Arctic research Geographic data and information organizations in the United States National Science Foundation 2007 establishments in Minnesota