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NGA, partners complete 2-meter resolution map of Arctic

 Oct. 5, 2018
 SPRINGFIELD, Virginia

 NGA Media Relations
 mediarelations@nga.mil
 571-557-5450

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and its partners in academia and industry released the final planned 3-D digital elevation models of the Arctic in 2-meter resolution Sept. 28.

Release 7 of the ArcticDEM Project is a mosaic of time-stamped DEM strips that cover the entire Arctic and fills gaps from previous releases.

The resolution is more than five times that of the original release and covers just over 10 percent of the Earth’s surface. Enhancements also include improved filtering to preserve coastlines and better resolve densely-forested areas subject to seasonal variation, according to the University of Minnesota’s Polar Geospatial Center.

A digital elevation model is a 3-D representation of a terrain’s surface, created from terrain elevation data. Analysis can be done on DEMs to determine or detect changes in topography over time.
 
Reduced-resolution versions of the mosaic are also available at 10 meters, 32 meters, 100 meters, 500 meters, and 1 kilometer for cartographic uses.

ArcticDEM maps can be downloaded from maps.apps.pgc.umn.edu/id/2366  and maps.apps.pgc.umn.edu/id/2367 .

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NGA, partners complete 2-meter resolution map of Arctic
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