Antarctic datasets available through ArcGIS Living Atlas

The ArcGIS Living Atlas provides access to a host of open datasets, including many that are Antarctic specific. With an internet connection, any Desktop GIS user can access these datasets and load them directly in to a GIS project.

By visiting the Living Atlas homepage, and searching 'Antarctica', you can see the range of datasets available. Below, we have selected a few of particular interest.

Reference Elevation Dataset of Antarctica (REMA)

The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) is a high resolution Digital Surface Model (DSM) of Antarctica at 8-meter spatial resolution, derived from stereo photogrammetry of very high resolution optical imagery.

To add this dataset, search for 'Antarctic DEM'. You will see a range of derived DEM products, such as slope and aspect, that are available alongside the DEM itself.

The item page links to further information.

Landsat Antarctic Views

This item provides access to Landsat 8 imagery for Antarctica.

The layer is time enabled and includes a number of band combinations and indices rendered on demand. The imagery includes eight multispectral bands from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and two bands from the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). It is updated daily with new imagery directly sourced from the USGS Landsat collection on AWS.

For further details, see the item page.

Antarctic monthly sea ice extent timeseries

Derived from NSIDC's Sea Ice Index datasets, this layer provides polygon data for Antarctic sea ice extent for every month from November 1978 to present.

Search for 'Antarctic sea ice extent'. Or access the dataset via the item page.

When this layer is loaded in to ArcGIS Pro, you will be presented with a timeslider to select the month, or range of months that you wish to display.

Sea ice extent March 2021 https://doi.org/10.7265/N5K072F8

Antarctic Iceberg Historic Locations

Derived from "The "Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database" by Jeff Budge and David G. Long, of Brigham Young University, this layer is a convenient feature service containing all the csv data from the database merged in to one layer ready to be added to Desktop GIS.

More information can be found on the item page.

Global datasets of interest in Living Atlas

Below is a selection of global datasets which may also be of interest.

Sea Floor Geomorphology from GRID Arendal

The geomorphic features in this layer were created by automated and manual processes. The source data for the process is a modified 30-arc second (~1 km) resolution version of SRTM30_PLUS global bathymetry produced in 2009.

The data is a feature layer, so it will re-project to a polar projection if you want to display it this way.

For further details, see the item description.

Sentinel-2 10m Land Use/Land Cover Time Series

This layer displays a global map of land use/land cover (LULC) derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10m resolution.