Please note that this site is an archive. The most up-to-date material is at: https://scar.org/science/geo .

WG-GGI Newsletter Number 2 " /> " />

Updated: 

WG-GGI Newsletter No. 2

November 2000


Dear GGI & GIANT Listserver members

Welcome to the second WG-GGI Newsletter as part of the GGI's Outreach Program. In this newsletter we hear from our colleagues in Italy, the UK, Germany, Poland and New Zealand and a big thank you to all of those who have contributed information to this edition.

Italian Geodetic activities planned in 2000-2001:

Alessandro Capra reports on a number of activities that will be undertaken this summer by the Italian crew in Antarctica:

The Coastal-change and Glaciological Maps of Antarctica workshop

A Coastal-change mapping workshop was held at BAS in mid-October. The primary aim of the workshop was to iron out problems that had been encountered in preparing the historical layer, based on aerial photography and early maps, that BAS is creating for the three 1:1 000 000 scale sheets covering the Antarctic Peninsula.

Janet Thomson reports:

"We had an exhausting three days, with 4 people from USGS and 3 from BAS; Cheryl Hallam stayed for another day and spent some time with me talking about the US Atlas of Antarctic Research. One of the issues arising from the workshop was that the metadata BAS had set up for the historical layers was different from that being used by the US work on the satellite imagery. USGS staff are now investigating ways of revising the metadata to ensure compatibility between the two groups.

Another outcome of the workshop is that the use of aerial photographs is seen to be an effective way of increasing the timeframe for the Coastal-change and Glaciological Mapping project. It may well be that, in future, historical layers form part of the project's database for other regions of Antarctica."

Crustal Deformation Network

Reinhard Dietrich reports that the next Epoch Campaign has the same schedule as the former ones. Information is available from TUD's homepage:

< www.tu-dresden.de/ipg/FGHGIPG/Aktuell-Dienste/scargps/database.html>

The announcement of 2001 Campaign can be found at:

< www.tu-dresden.de/ipg/FGHGIPG/Aktuell-Dienste/scargps/scar2001.html>

If any members are interested in participating in the 2001 campaign please contact Prof Dietrich directly.

Atmospheric Impacts on GPS observations in Antarctica

Jan Cisak from Poland reports that he has prepared an application to the Polish Committee on Research. The application was delivered to this Committee at the end of July. The Committee have sent it to two or three professors for review. The final result about the finances of the grant will be known about the end of December 2000. He also said "I included in the project some of the best Polish specialists on GPS and atmospheric researchers as well as Reinhard Dietrich."

Good luck Jan! and we'll keep you posted with any news on the application.

Geodetic Control Database

The Executive Officer has received word from New Zealand that John Ritchie from LINZ is working on this project. John is currently in Antarctica and will be contacting the EO upon his return….stay tuned for further developments.

AGS'01 - St. Petersburg, July 2001

There has been some interest from GGI members and others outside the WG about the Antarctic Geodesy Symposium 2001 both I and the Executive Officer, in consultation with the Russian member - Alexander Yuskevitch - have started to formulate a draft program for the event. If you have any suggestions for topics or would like to present a paper please let us know and we will try and work you into the program.

Canadian member for WG-GGI

On the 22nd of November I received the following letter from Prof Warwick Vincent, Chair of the Canadian Committee for Antarctic Research.

Dear Dr. Manning

On behalf of the Canadian Committee for Antarctic Research (CCAR), Canada's
national Antarctic committee, I wish to nominate a Canadian representative
to the SCAR Working Group on Geodesy and Geographic Information.

Specifically we would like to name Professor Fraser Taylor, whose contact
details are given below. In making this nomination we have consulted with
the Canadian Polar Commission, Canada's adhering body to SCAR.

As you may remember, Dr. Taylor, in Cupertino with Dr. D. Vergani,
Argentina, prepared the proposal 'Cybercartographic Atlas for Antarctica'
that was presented to your WG during SCAR XXVI last July. The proposal was
subsequently included in your work program under the umbrella of 'On-line
Atlases for Antarctica'. CCAR strongly supports this program and Dr. Taylor
will lead the Canadian effort to bring it to fruition. In view of this and
his very high standing in the Canadian as well as the international
cartographic community, Dr. Taylor's participation in your working group
would seem to be an excellent opportunity to ensure the fullest information
exchange and collaboration with all interested SCAR parties concerning the
Antarctic On-line Atlas project.

For your information, the proposal was also presented by Canada as an
Information Paper to the recent XII SATCM in The Hague, where it was well
received and commented on in the Final Report of CEP III.

……

Under separate cover I am sending you a recent copy of our newsletter and
the report of a workshop on Canadian participation in Antarctic and bipolar
studies. I hope you will find them of interest.

I look forward to your response to this nomination.

Yours sincerely

Warwick F. Vincent
Chair CCAR

I am very pleased to accept this nomination and have added Prof Taylor's contact details to our GGI Listserver and the WG-GGI Members page on the web site…Welcome Prof Tayor!

John Manning
Chief Officer, WG-GGI

and

Glenn Johnstone
Executive Officer, WG-GGI