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SCAR GSSG - GIANT Newsletter No.4 " /> " />

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GIANT NEWSLETTER NO.4


This is a copy of the GIANT Newsletter No. 4 that was circulated to all members on the GIANT Listserver and is also available in Adobe PDF format.


Dear GIANT Listserver members

Please find below the 4th GIANT Newsletter. Items in the newsletter include

  1. Summary of the 2nd Antarctic Geodesy Symposium (AGS99)
  2. The report of the GIANT program to the WG-GGI Coordinators meeting in Heppenheim, Germany, 26-27 July 1999
  3. The action items for the GIANT program from the Heppenheim meeting
  4. Physical Geodesy project is now on the Web

Summary of AGS99, Warsaw, Poland

This second SCAR Antarctic Geodesy symposium was held at the Scientific Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw 15-16th July. It was attended by up to 30 participants, which included representatives of ten SCAR countries. (See Attachment 1 for attendees list)

The program was a blend of background of Polish Antarctic activities related to Geodesy. This included Prof. Dr Guterch who also outlined Polish Arctic exploration activities, Prof. Birkenmajer presented a history of Polish Polar research including his extensive work in the Antarctic peninsula and with Geographical names for geological mapping in the area. Prof. Sledzinski outlined his experiences with the 1958 expedition to Dobrowolski in the Bunger Hills including his pendulum absolute gravity observations at that site.

The program continued with presentations on the recent geodetic activities in Antarctica and a proposal for Physical Geodesy Database (Dr Capra) and an impressive Internet distributed GIS system for Antarctica (Nengchen Chen, China). Of particular note was the attendance of Dr Yuskevitch the new Russian representative to the SCAR WG-GGI replacing Dr Soudakov. It is intend to publish Proceedings as a SCAR Report.

Participants gave an indication of their plans for activities for the next summer season 1999/2000 during a GIANT business meeting.

The second day presentations were rounded of with a technical tour to the Borowa Gora fundamental geodetic observatory where a demonstration of the prototype portable Absolute Gravity meter by Dr Zanimonskiy. An impressive demonstration of the new JAVAD GLONASS/GPS receiver by Ilari Koskelo was followed a very enjoyable Polish barbecue in the grounds of the Observatory.

The Antarctic Geodesy symposium (AGS99) was a very successful event very well hosted and we thank the Polish Institute of Geodesy and Cartography for their great hospitality.


The SCAR WG-GGI Coordinators meeting was hosted by BKG at Heppenheim south of Frankfurt. John Manning, Alessandro Capra ,Anders Zakrajsek, Larry Hothem and Jan Cisak attended from the GIANT program. The general report was presented and individual reports were additionally given by Alessandro Capra and Larry Hothem for their projects.

GIANT PROGRESS REPORT TO SCAR WG-GGI COORDINATORS MEETING

Heppenheim 26/27th July 1999

Activities since Concepcion meeting July 1998 for the GIANT program are summarised below.

  1. PERMANENT GEODETIC OBSERVATORIES

New GPS continuous base stations have been installed at Dumont d’Urville, Terra Nova, Zhong Shan, Frei, Maitri Stations and Falklands

Continuous Sites operating with Satellite data retrieval for IGS data centre are:

Continuous Sites without Satellite retrieval of data currently are at:

Reymond (JPL) in Transantarctic Mountains, Donnellan (JPL) in Edward VII land, are developing technology for power generation for continuous remote observatories. Annual download approach is also being trialed by Tregonning (ANU) at Beaver Lake . ANTEC has been involved in arranging a specialist meeting in Pasadena in late August 1999 for operations in extreme environments.

The initial meeting of ANTEC led to the development of a draft plan for remote site GPS occupation for consideration.

Meeting requested with BKG on 28th July to reinforce the importance of O’Higgins for Global geodesy

Sanae, Mawson and Syowa are now IGS sites so priority sites for satellite download from existing manual continuous sites are

Australia is processing data from satellite retrieved data from permanent sites for global solutions. Requirements for submission of epoch campaigns to ITRF are being investigated by AUSLIG.

Details of permanent sites have been posted on WG-GGI web site. Metadata records for all IGS permanent GPS and DORIS sites have been entered into the Australian Antarctic Data Centre’s metadata database

Specifications for GPS base stations are being reviewed. The best existing international standard for GPS base stations is probably the IGS guidelines for GPS stations. These are the interim recommended standard for Antarctic sites and are being crosslinked from the GIANT web site.

The de facto international specifications for stations transmitting DGPS corrections are the USCG standards with RTCM similar to the CORS base station at. These are cross-linked from the GIANT web site. UNAVACO also has useful specifications for base stations, which is under review for preparations of guidelines for Antarctic installation.

Information from all GIANT members was requested in GIANT Newsletter #3 (24/6/99). Specific follow up action is being taken in regards to collocated information at O’Higgins, Dumont Durville, Syowa to obtain local survey information for the WG-GGI web site.

Tide Gauge data is principally held by the Permanent Committee for mean sea level (PCMSL) in London. The Southern Ocean Sea Level Centre (SOSLC) at The National Tidal facility in Australia will archive all southern ocean data it receives. Currently most data is held sent directly to PCMSL in London. All SOSLC data, such as that for the Australian sites is accessible through the NTF web site. Facilitation of data to SOSLC is proceeding (Currently Cape Roberts, Faraday and O’Higgins).

  1. GPS EPOCH CAMPAIGNS

The general situation with epoch surveys is illustrated in the overheads supplied by Reinhard Dietrich, who is unable to attend due to IUGG commitments.

  1. PHYSICAL GEODESY

See also separate report by A. Capra

EGM96 gravity set is available from NIMA and needs to be reviewed for Antarctic content Discussion with Steve Kenyon, Munie Kumar commenced.

GIANT Convenor has been approached about involvement in the CHAMP and GRACE satellite gravity projects. These will produce long wavelength gravity over the Polar Regions and will benefit from ground calibration sites in Antarctica. GIANT convenor registered as Co investigator for CHAMP and GRACE satellite gravity missions with principal investigator C.K. Shum OSU. Links have been made to ICESAT project (Schutz and Herring) re investigator status and ground truthing for the project, which will produce a geopotential model over Antarctica. An opportunity exists for the WG-GGI to facilitate a seal level or Geoid based DEM over the continent.

The AGDI project (Glenn Johnstone) will create data libraries and assemble compatible fundamental data sets which will assist the Geoid project particularly for collation of Topography and Bathymetry and interface with BEDMAP, RAMP, ADGRAV, IAG, IgeS etc.

ANTEC poster prepared by Terry Wilson and as displayed version set up by Glenn Johnstone.

Capra designed draft data base for discussion/adoption before being populated

As the new data set does not have significant extra ground gravity data there is little improvement and the lack of ground truthing points to really check any general improvement.

No progress on this item.

No progress, awaiting data collection from AGDI, RAMP,BEDMAP, ADGRAV and discussions with IAG gravity group. Offer by Russia to host a discussion meeting on Antarctic Geodesy.

  1. GLONASS EVALUATION

A Javad GLONASS receiver was run for 2 months at McMurdo,

GLONASS data was sent to the Global CDDIS data centre by satellite.

To date the focus of the IGEX campaign has been to compute and compare GLONASS orbits and GPS orbit.

As only one Antarctic site was observed there is little specialist Antarctic analysis which can be down in relation to ground truthing of transformation parameters until more sites can be occupied.

The major reporting event will be the ION IGEX meeting in Nashville in September 1999 where ground position values will be presented along with orbital information.

The future of GLONASS campaigns will be evaluated at this time but AUSLIG will be looking to install a permanent JAVAD receiver at an Australian station.

5. DIFFERENTIAL GPS BASE STATIONS

The default global standard for DGPS transmission for marine transmissions is that of the US Coastguard which now operates many sites in the USA. This is the standard which should be used for Antarctic operations.

Three DGPS transmitting sites, operating to the US standard (with a nominal 200 mile range) could provide1- 2 metre accuracy positioning for field operations and all shipping in the region to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula. The suggested best location of these stations would be:

Further investigation on the transmission coverage over sea ice needs to be undertaken.

No progress to date on aviation and Kinematic applications

Information on globally accepted standards is being collated for preparation of report to COMNAP.

  1. REMOTE GEODETIC OBSERVATORIES
  1. INFORMATION ACCESS
  1. OTHER ITEMS

A number of other issues have developed since the Concepion meeting:

There has been considerable Antarctic Geodesy exposure at recent conferences.

IAG Activities

Alessandro Capra presented his physical Geodesy data base approach during IUGG and it is expected that a special group on Polar Gravity will be reformed, initially to look at Artic Coordination but eventually to focus on Antarctica.

Internet based GIS

China presented a proposal for a web based distributed system for an Antarctic GIS and offered to host a GIS meeting at the Chinese Antarctic Centre immediately before SCAR2000.


Glenn Johnstone recorded the minutes from the WG Coordinators meeting which are available on the WG-GGI web site. A summary of the action items from the meeting for the GIANT program are given below.

Actions from the Heppenheim meeting

GEODESY (GIANT) PROGRAM

 

ACTION

PERSON

1

Liaise with Pat Smith (NSF) regarding the issue of TNB utilising the satellite link McMurdo have for sending out data from TNB. Contact Alessandro Capra regarding outcome.

Larry Hothem

2

Attempt to get a contact in the Urkraine for tide gauge data at Vernadsky

Janet Thomson

3

Include remote sites (eg. JPL sites in Marie Byrd Land and Dry Valleys) on GPS web page.

Glenn Johnstone

4

Develop draft proposal on tide gauge project for discussion at XXVI SCAR

John Manning

5

Physical Geodesy page required on the web - liaise with Glenn Johnstone on this and supply information to go on pages. (Also will provide info on TNB tide gauge)

Alessandro Capra

6

Supply Alessandro Capra with details / reports from BEDMAP workshop.

Glenn Johnstone

7

Supply Glenn Johnstone with Database Management System presentation (.PPT) for circulation to Coordinators.

Alessandro Capra

8

Find out from Johannes Idhe information on his work with a continental DEM

John Manning & Glenn Johnstone

9

Write to Drew Clarke regarding the formalisation of the proposals for IAG and IGES sub-commissions and getting SCAR WG endorsement for these to go ahead.

Alessandro Capra

10

Follow up on report on the differences between OSU91 and EGM96 & let Larry Hothem know

John Manning

11

Produce paper on benefits & future of GLONASS - post IGEX Sept 99 meeting

John Manning & Larry Hothem

12

Letter to Jack Sayers - intention is provide technical submission prior to Tokyo meeting.

John Manning & Larry Hothem

13

Technical submission to COMNAP - potential benefits for field, air and sea DGPS navigation for COMNAP meeting in Tokyo, 2000

John Manning & Larry Hothem

14

Represent GGI at workshop on Autonomous Systems in Extreme Environments

Larry Hothem

15

Pass contact details for Palmer tide gauge data to Glenn Johnstone

Larry Hothem

16

Check on status of NZ geodetic database on web. Glenn Johnstone to link into WG-GGI site.

John Manning

17

Liaise with Jan Cisak regarding digital versions of AGS99 papers and also liaise with Peter Clarkson regarding publication in SCAR Report and costs for printing.

Glenn Johnstone




Physical Geodesy project on the Web

The GIANT Physical Geodesy project now has it’s own page on the GGI web site. It’s early days and there is not very much there at the moment. But bookmark it and keep coming back.we’ll keep you posted on updates and additions to the page. You can find it at www.geoscience.scar.org/geodesy/physgeod/index.htm


John Manning
GIANT Program Coordinator
23 August 1999