The new publication titled “Quantarctica, an integrated mapping environment for Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, and sub-Antarctic islands”, has been published in Environmental Modelling & Software. The open-acces paper gives an overview over the functions of Quantarctica, data layers in Quantarctica, different user applications and more.
You can read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105015
Quantarctica (https://www.npolar.no/quantarctica) is a geospatial data package, analysis environment, and visualization platform for the Antarctic Continent, Southern Ocean (>40oS), and sub-Antarctic islands. Quantarctica works with the free, cross-platform Geographical Information System (GIS) software QGIS and can run without an Internet connection, making it a viable tool for fieldwork in remote areas. The data package includes basemaps, satellite imagery, terrain models, and scientific data in nine disciplines, including physical and biological sciences, environmental management, and social science. To provide a clear and responsive user experience, cartography and rendering settings are carefully prepared using colour sets that work well for typical data combinations and with consideration of users with common colour vision deficiencies. Metadata included in each dataset provides brief abstracts for non-specialists and references to the original data sources. Thus, Quantarctica provides an integrated environment to view and analyse multiple Antarctic datasets together conveniently and with a low entry barrier.
Quantarctica has been updated to version 3.2, and is downloadable from www.npolar.no/quantarctica. Quantarctica is a SCAR product developed by Norwegian Polar Institute with editorial board members from 8 nations representing individual disciplines. Visit the Quantarctic website to download the latest version. If you have any questions, comments, bug reports, or good-looking maps, please email the team at [email protected].
Reference:
Matsuoka, Kenichi et. al (2021). “Quantarctica, an integrated mapping environment for Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, and sub-Antarctic islands.” Environmental Modelling & Software 140; doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105015.