The Polar Geospatial Center: Community and Facility Support

Title: The Polar Geospatial Center: Community and Facility Support

Non-Technical Abstract

The Polar Geospatial Center (PGC) is a polar science and logistics support organization at the University of Minnesota. The research community finds itself in the midst of a scientific and geospatial revolution sparked by the availability of an unprecedented volume of open geospatial data, as well as access to high-resolution optical imagery made available by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). In support of NSF?s Polar science mission of understanding the earth and its systems, exploring the geographical frontier, and performing science enabled by in polar setting, PGC uses these data to provide mapping, GIS, and remote sensing solutions to researchers and logistics groups. PGC provides products and services including: mapping and GIS analysis; access to sub-meter commercial satellite imagery for the Antarctic and Arctic; expertise to task, manage, process and deliver high-level value-added products to the NSF polar community; domain and institutional knowledge to solve a broad range of geospatial problems; and educational courses including online material to transfer PGC?s knowledge and experience to the community. The PGC is collaborating with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to create a publicly available high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) of the entire Arctic from high-resolution satellite imagery. These data will be used by the Arctic community to support activities including transportation, national defense, land management, sustainable development, and scientific studies.

Technical Abstract

The Polar Geospatial Center (PGC) facilitates access to geospatial resources and knowledge for the polar community. PGC staff has a direct one-to-one relationship with each user, tailoring product delivery to the expertise and needs of the user?s specific science or logistics goals. To this end, PGC maintains an extensive online archive of sub-meter electro-optical commercial imagery licensed through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency?s (NGA) EnhancedView program. PGC works to automate labor-intensive processing workflows using the Extreme Science and Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and Blue Waters high performance computing infrastructures, and is developing a web-based imagery and geospatial product delivery system (FRIDGE; Federal Research Imagery Download and Geodata Exploration). This delivery system is based around a task management and queuing tool that interfaces with PGC?s user management database and PGC?s HPC cluster. Polar digital elevation models (DEM) will be produced using the Surface Extraction from TIN-based Search-space Minimization (SETSM) algorithm and the Ames Stereo Pipeline. These products have an expected accuracy of 4m without ground control and sub-meter accuracy when ground control is used. A key component of PGC's mission is training of today's young geospatial students in the use of imagery to solve scientific problems. PGC offers workshops, online instructional material, and collaborative imagery processing workflow development. PGC?s goal is to provide rapid and cost-effective access to geospatial data and education for the purpose of promoting polar science.