My presentation on Friday went well. I was a little late getting out of the door and had to rush to get down to the location. I was a little nervous so I went through the presentation a little too fast. But it provided valuable practice.
Today I have two shorter articles. An African company has contracted TerraStar for series of geophysical, exploration and environmental surveys. The positional accuracy will be around 10cm. I do not have much to say about this one. It is pretty straight forward. It is almost always good to have more data, and these surveys will provide valuable information for agriculture, climate, volcanic activity, etc. It will provide a base reading for researchers to discuss the many needs of Africa and allow them to predict environmental protection needs going forward. This is just awesome. I could go on and on about all of the benefits to science that this data, but lets be honest, it is a pretty picture. Who would not to want to hop in a buggy and cruise around a Antarctica? It is important to read the caption on the first photo too. The vertical scale is magnified by a factor of 17. Antarctica is so large, that if they left the image at true scale you really would not be able to see most of the detail. They have had other regional data sets, but nothing at this scale so it really should provide a good clue into what is going on under the ice. It also will help with calculating the change in ice on the continent. There are a few conflicting stories that are taken out of context on the level of ice reduction and having this available to scientist will hopefully reinforce those studies. I am sure they will still be taken out of context, but more discerning rea And the best part of this whole thing is that the data is available to any one researching climate change, sea-level rise, and Antarctic topography. So if you are searching for a new project or some weekend hobby you can get the data.
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AuthorI am a GIS professional in Walla Walla, WA. I use this blog to force myself to really read through all of the GIS news that I get in my inbox. It also helps me practice writing. Archives
January 2015
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