PGC News & Announcements (December 17, 2021)

PGC News and Announcements

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PGC Welcomes Stephanie Linde

PGC Staff Member Stephanie Linde

We would like to extend a warm welcome to Stephanie Linde, our newest staff member. She brings over ten years of GIS project management and consultancy experience. Stephanie has supported a wide range of stakeholders, scientists, and audiences in environmental data analysis, data visualization, and cartography. We’re thrilled to have her join our team!


PGC Recognized by Director of National Intelligence at
Vice President Kamala Harris’ First National Space Council Meeting

Vice President Kamala Harris at First National Space Council Meeting

On Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 during Vice President Kamala Harris’ First National Space Council Meeting, the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, recognized the PGC for concerted efforts in understanding the impact of climate change.

Our ArcticDEM and REMA data were highlighted, as well as our public-private partnerships, as examples of how we helped catapult the polar regions from one of the worst to one of the best mapped places on Earth in order to better track the rapid change.

Check out the video to learn more about the impact of our work and collaborations.


EarthDEM Data Release

Caldwell Hills, CA hillshade

ICYMI – We’re expanding beyond the polar regions! Last month we announced the release of EarthDEM, our high resolution time-stamped elevation data for non-polar regions.

The EarthDEM products are available to U.S. federal employees, U.S. federal contractors, and U.S. government-funded researchers. To gain access, users can submit an access request form and agree to an End User License Agreement (EULA). Once access is granted, DEMs can be searched and downloaded using NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Smallsat Data Explorer tool.

We’re excited to see what users can discover using this vast dataset! Please visit the following links for more information:

PGC’s EarthDEM Webpage

NASA Press Release

Help us spread the word about #EarthDEM by sharing our posts on FacebookTwitter, and Instagram.


Antarctic Mosaic Update

Antarctic hillshade with highlighted cells of PGC mosaic improvements in western region

In our 2021 survey, our Users asked for more frequent updates to our Imagery Viewers…and we’re delivering! Our team has focused efforts on improving high priority areas for our Antarctic Viewer update (highlighted in the figure on the right). The new 50cm imagery mosaics cover much of western Antarctica, the peninsula, and the Transantarctic range with imagery dated through August 9, 2021. The update will be live in the coming weeks.

PGC’s Arctic Viewer updates will be completed in Spring 2022! Stay tuned!


Arctic Tasking Requests
Due January 21, 2022

Satellite hovering over ArcticPGC is working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to coordinate collections of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery from Maxar for the upcoming 2022 Arctic field season. 

Please get in touch with your PGC Point of Contact if you have federal funding and are conducting Arctic research or providing Arctic logistics support and would like to submit tasking requests for your area(s) of interest. The deadline for requests for the upcoming Arctic field season is January 21st, 2022. If you submitted a request for a previous year and would like to have imagery collected for a future season contact your POC for resubmission.


PGC in the Limelight

AGU TV

PGC was chosen to be featured in this year’s AGU TV series, a unique platform to highlight the latest research and emerging trends within the fields of Earth and space science.

It has been a privilege to participate and having high visibility at this year’s AGU Fall Meeting. We hope this short introductory video provides insight into what PGC is all about and helps us engage with others interested in polar sciences beyond the meeting.

Check out our video on YouTube.


ATLAS OF A CHANGING EARTH

PGC was also one of three groups featured in an award-winning documentary film, “Atlas of a Changing Earth.” Each group featured in ACE uses collaboration, satellite imagery, supercomputers and visualization, to track the effects of climate change to help guide and inform solutions.

PGC’s featured datasets ArcticDEM and REMA reveal a concerted team effort to develop resources to better enhance our understanding of the rapidly warming poles. ACE was co-produced by NCSA Blue Waters and Advanced Visualization Lab and the full-lenth (25 min.) can be viewed by creating a free account.

Check out the full-length (25 min.) feature by creating a free account here.

Check out the original PGC Newsletter post here.

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