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Arctic and Antarctica Data
posted by Satri
on Thursday November 29, @05:42PM
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from the say-hello-to-penguins dept.
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from the say-hello-to-penguins dept.
Ogle Earth discuss the new Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) data available from the International Polar Year (IPY) program. APB links to a Nature article which provides more coverage: "It will be used in every discipline from biology to geology to glaciology, both to answer scientific questions and plan fieldwork in the vast unexplored tracts of Antarctica. For educators, students, and the general public, LIMA will bring to life the Antarctic continent like nothing before it."
Meanwhile, The Google Earth Blog discuss an arctic ice melting animation available for Google Earth. I copied below a few related previous stories. If you're looking for geospatial data over the poles, take a look at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Related Stories
Satellites Shows Arctic Polar Route Emerges
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Slashdot discuss a Yahoo! News article about ESA's Envisat and EOS Aqua "showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself". From the article: "Regular satellite monitoring over the last 25 years shows that the northern polar ice cover has shrunk and thinned as global temperatures have risen.
But this year's images are unprecedented, and fierce storms that fragmented and scattered already thin pack ice may be to blame, the scientists believe." See last year story on the same topic. Update: 09/21 17:29 GMT by S :La Cartoteca links to a ESA article with screenshots.
Industry: International Polar Year Maps 3 comments
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The Map Room links to the Canadian International Polar Year Internet Map Server. From the International Polar year website: "The International Polar Year is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009.
IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually the fourth polar year, following those in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8."
Technology: Polar Data In Google
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Ogle Earth reports "...Got GIS that stretches across the poles? Google Earth can't help you, but you can fake it by applying Gerardo64's hack: Add your polar projection as a PhotoOverlay, like so:"
The picture is worth the look, so head on over to OgleEarth.
The picture is worth the look, so head on over to OgleEarth.
Industry: Google Imagery December Update, New Features and More 1 comment
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Several Google geonews in the last few days. Let's start with fresh new imagery for Google Earth, answers are found here. There's also Antarctica which received attention (previous post). Panoramio's geotagged photos are now searchable. There's also a showcase of the Google Earth Outreach program (previous post). And why not enhancements to the 3D warehouse. And new support in the Google Maps API for Google Sky, Moon and Mars data. And finally, a minor Google Earth patent.
Technology: 18,000 New GeoNames Places for Antarctica
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The GeoNames blog informs us the addition of 18,104 new GeoNames places for Antarctica. From the entry: "The CGA [Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica] is compiled by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) who have kindly given us the permission to use their data under the condition that we publish the disclaimer below. The CGA is itself an aggregator and includes data from 23 sources from 22 countries. 12′000 features are from US sources, Russia and the UK both contribute 4′800 places." Make sure you read this previous entry on data over Antarctica, more below.
Industry: Arctic Mapping Redraws Borders
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Very Spatial discuss a NatureNews article on U.S. Arctic mapping and the border conflict with Canada (and Russia). The article's introduction: "The recent push for nations to stake a claim to portions of the Arctic sea floor, where potential oil reserves are thought to lie, has thrown a spotlight on how little is known about these areas, and on new attempts to pin the geography down. Earlier this week, the United States announced that their survey of the sea floor of the Chukchi Cap, a giant underwater peninsula north of Alaska (see map), showed that the foot of its continental slope — where the continental shelf falls off into the ocean basin — is more than 100 nautical miles farther from the US coast than was previously believed." Canada's budget announced this week includes "[p]roviding $34 million over two years for geological mapping to support economic development" for the the North.
See also related stories below.
New Map of Carved Up Arctic
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Slashdot runs a discussion about a new jurisdictional map of the Arctic. Their summary: "The International Boundaries Research Unit has recently published a new jurisdictional map of the Arctic, using geographic and legal definitions. Now it appears Santa Claus could potentially be Danish. But as pointed out in an article at The Star, more important than St. Nick is 'an area thought to contain one-fifth of the world's undiscovered and recoverable oil and gas resources,' and from this map, Russia has a huge claim in that."
TMR adds a link to a Reuthers article.
We covered earlier this year the border conflict between the U.S., Canada and Russia in Arctic, and longer ago, the relation with oil exploration area expansion.
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