Polar Geospatial Center: Opening Doors to the Most Inaccessible Places on Earth

The record of Earth’s geologic, biologic and climatic history is recorded in rock units and ice deposits across the globe, with some of the most scientifically valuable samples only accessible in some of the most difficult to access places on the planet. This describes the Earth’s polar regions: frigid archives of an ever changing world that are immensely challenging to study in situ. This remoteness has led polar research in the United States to adopt a similar approach to that of the space program when exploring other planets and moons: maximize the value of remote sensing to map large regions in detail while equipping researchers with information they need to prepare for field operations that often have only one opportunity for success. For almost two decades, with the support of the school of Earth & Environmental Sciences (ESCI), the Polar Geospatial Center (PGC) has made massive volumes of remote sensing data and industry-leading geospatial expertise available to polar researchers to make the most challenging projects at the ends of the Earth possible.

PGC has continued this work in the middle of a decade of uncertainty for polar research. The COVID pandemic set back field operations at both poles. Resources needed for infrastructure investments in Antarctica have come at the expense of science operations. Political tensions in the Arctic have affected field access and international collaborations. And now a new federal funding landscape necessitated an ongoing reevaluation of priorities within the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Office of Polar Programs, the principal funder of PGC’s operations. In this era of unavoidable uncertainty, NSF has solidified PGC’s role in the polar research community by committing to five years of funding through 2030 to continue its support of the polar research community.

What makes PGC so valuable that it was renewed in spite of such intense headwinds? PGC does not conduct science itself, rather it facilitates science and logistics operations in the Arctic and Antarctic in an effort to serve as many researchers as possible. To do this, PGC works with meter-scale data at regional, continental and now global scales, primarily using commercially-licensed satellite imagery. Earth observing satellites available to researchers can image the surface at up to 31 cm per pixel, making features at 1 or 2 meters in size resolvable. Such detailed satellite images help answer a range of questions from where a research team should camp to drill for the oldest ice on Earth, to the migration patterns of penguins to whether a resupply plane can safely land, and any scientific or logistical challenge in between. User involvement in the data acquisition process is not limited to accessing data via PGC, rather it begins with satellite tasking: users submit regions of interest that are then input by PGC staff into a data collection plan. The nature of these polar-orbiting satellites and the lack of competition at high-latitudes has led to a high-volume data archive of not only the polar regions in general but also of key regions of scientific interest. 

PGC provides users with terabytes of data but do the users themselves have the necessary knowledge to maximize the utility of these resources? PGC’s User Services team serves as an on-call group of geospatial and remote sensing experts to work with individual researchers to properly utilize and interpret the data that PGC generates and delivers. Each PGC user has a single point of contact that serves as a team member for their project, connecting them with the data and information they need to ensure project success. This could manifest as explaining the details of data processing algorithms to custom cartography of field sites or a litany of other geospatial-specific tasks. While much of PGC’s user support can be fulfilled remotely, annual on-site presence at McMurdo Station provides Antarctic researchers with real-time help in a location where data rates make remote support inefficient. This is particularly true for urgent search-and-rescue missions that require high-resolution satellite data that PGC facilitates. This retail mode of user support has established PGC as an essential partner for field work across Antarctica.

While providing access to high-resolution satellite imagery, PGC led the generation of topographic models of the polar regions at resolutions comparable to the imagery itself. Using code developed by collaborators at Ohio State University and high-performance computing resources funded by NSF, PGC used stereo imaging to make models of the surface at the poles at 2 m/px, a massive leap in our knowledge of the shape of the surface at critical scientific locations. These projects (ArcticDEM for the north and the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica [REMA] for the south) provide foundational, community-adopted maps of the poles that set the stage for the future of polar research. In addition, researchers have access to individual time-stamped elevation models that allow for measurement of surface change. Questions evolve from “Did this glacier move?” or “How far did this glacier move?” to “How much material in this glacier moved?” and “How much ice from the land was lost to the sea?”.  In some regions, researchers can access hundreds of elevation models such that the high spatial- and temporal-resolution combine to create unprecedented documentation of how these regions are evolving in our current climate regime.

PGC’s work at the poles is a matter of necessity: remote sensing in remote regions facilitates work that would otherwise be impossible. Yet the techniques employed by PGC, producing and providing high-resolution data at continental scales, have applicability across the globe, overlapping with much of the work being conducted in ESCI. PGC has partnered with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to map the surface of Earth’s continents in 3D, bridging the gap between the Arctic to the Antarctic. The evolution of the Earth’s poles have global impacts, and EarthDEM, PGC’s global-scale elevation model project, allows researchers to measure how these changes at high-latitudes manifest across the planet. PGC has nearly completed the construction of planet-wide elevation models and is now focused on how to disseminate it to researchers who can maximize its scientific value. Like the imagery used to generate the models, and unlike ArcticDEM and REMA, EarthDEM is licensed and thus accessible to federally funded researchers but not the public at large. Thus, PGC is actively exploring opportunities to collaborate with researchers in ESCI and beyond who are eligible to use these data.

Much like how the polar regions themselves are undergoing unprecedented changes, the framework for how we study them is evolving as well, with funding challenges at the federal level precipitating uncertainty across the field. PGC’s latest NSF renewal was submitted into this challenging ecosystem in May, 2024, with a clear theme that remote sensing is a bulwark against these headwinds: while researchers struggle to access field sites at both poles, the multi-decade record of high-resolution satellite imagery that fuels scientists and logistics professionals alike should continue. While the reviews of PGC’s renewal were exceptional, all of the aforementioned challenges stretched the review process for over a calendar year. PGC thus relied upon critical institutional support from ESCI, who showed confidence in PGC that finally paid off. NSF committed to funding PGC to support the polar research community for 5 years starting on July 1, 2025. This provides a foundation upon which PGC plans to spend the rest of the decade expanding its user base to non-polar researchers in ESCI and beyond who would benefit from not just the data volumes that PGC hosts, but the unique collection of talented researchers who make PGC what it is.

PGC’s team of staff and students who are fluent in the language of science support, dedicated as much to the process of science and remote sensing data as they are to the landmark discoveries made by PGC users. The PGC team combines backgrounds in geospatial technology, Earth and planetary science, web development, information technology and more to meet the needs of its users. As these needs evolve and technologies and techniques constantly change, PGC works with students from UMN and other institutions to apply their formal training to actual challenges for PGC users. The PGC team is poised to more fully incorporate ESCI research teams into its user community, providing data and expertise that apply techniques that have revolutionized research at the north and south poles to any site in between.