Made primarily of polystyrene they weigh just 1.6 kg on take-off, but despite this they are capable of operating in the stronger winds we experience down in the Antarctic with a maximum continuous wind limit of 17 m/s. In fact, yesterday we clocked a top ground speed of >63 mph! 2/2

MAGIC was out test flying our eBee VISION platforms in advance of the upcoming Antarctic field season this week. The eBee VISION UAVs can fly for 90 minutes and operate up to 20 km from the pilot. Here's a short clip of one of them in action! 🛩️ 1/2

Lots of dots! These are spot heights generated for our Air Operations Planning Maps, using REMAv2 2m tiles. Next steps are to clean up the density, add existing GPS points & then add them to our maps, which are used for planning by pilots across the continent. The data will then be openly published!

We are currently hosting an intern digitising ice floes from satellite radar (SAR) imagery in the Weddell Sea. The resulting labelled data will be used in the NERC DEFIANT and QUASAR projects to assess the performance of machine learning methods and quantify errors in sea ice concentration data.

Just finished building a gazetteer search component on top of the ArcGIS SearchViewModel! Its running off of a set of geoserver WFS services with a custom locator layer source! Working really neatly! #ArcGIS #Maps

We have been working along with engineers from Phase One and Rocky Mountain Aircraft over the past week to install and test our new Phase One PAS aerial camera into BAS's Twin Otter aircraft. 🛩️ 1/3

Did you know that it's possible to follow the RRS Sir David Attenborough on @bas.ac.uk's website? We provide the maps and location tracking to underpin this. 🚢🗺️ See the latest position of the ship here, on its way north after a long season in Antarctica! www.bas.ac.uk/polar-operat...

This week we have been at a @polomints.bsky.social project meeting, planning details of how to use fixed stereo cameras, RPAS and our new air camera to monitor calving of the Sheldon Glacier on Adelaide Island. For more information visit polomints.ac.uk.

Whilst updating an app to the latest version of the ArcGIS JS API (4.33) we picked up a minor regression in labelling for a super niche situation. I would call that one epic win for our automated testing setup! Check out our setup here: github.com/antarctica/e... #Arcgis #Dev #Playwright

I always like to get in early with implementing a responsive UI - usually it means that the actual extra code is pretty minimal! #arcgis #responsive

We're hiring a GIS and Mapping Specialist to manage our Geospatial Helpdesk and to contribute to our Topographic Map Series. This is a really exciting opportunity at the British Antarctic Survey to support colleagues across the organisation. Details here: shorturl.at/bA4fd #GISjobs

We've been developing a new application with ArcGIS Maps SDK to create a simple UX for exploring our imagery archive - We pull on lots of the existing widget view models but tweak them to create out own workflow and design system. Map and workflow logic is orchestrated by XState. #arcgis #arcgisdev

Great to see our map used by UK Foreign Secretary Rt Hon David Lammy and Espen Barth Eide during their visit to the @ukarcticoffice.bsky.social in Ny-Ålesund recently. With summer/winter versions, it shows how fast the region changes and why frequent, detailed mapping in the Arctic is so important.

Just finished a little refresh of Sewagemap.co.uk. Added a fun loader, and additional layer filtering bits and bobs! It continues to show a bleak picture of sewage overflow in the uk... 💩😔 #sewage #uk #arcgis

A few months ago, we surveyed Rothera Point using our fixed-wing eBee-X UAV. We've now processed the data and produced this beautiful, orthorectified mosaic, as well as a Digital Elevation Model. We carry out these surveys every year, allowing all of BAS to work with current and accurate data!

We're proud to share that our Bedmap3 map won "Best Map" at the International Map Industry Association (IMIA) forum in London last week! 🏆 This international award celebrates Outstanding Cartographic Design & we’re honoured to be recognised alongside leading names in the field from previous years. 🗺️

It has been a busy week for conferences this week! One of our GIS Specialists presented at the IMIA Mapping Leaders Forum in London yesterday. It has been a useful few days talking to some world-leading map publishers and printers and we’ve gained lots of ideas on how we can do more with our maps!

Effective immediately, the PGC is no longer accepting new NSF-supported requests due to a lack of renewal funding. Current work is wrapping up. Please contact your NSF program officer if impacted. We’re grateful to have supported your polar research. Read our full statement at www.pgc.umn.edu

📢 We're hiring a GIS Specialist to support the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation Programme. This is a really exciting opportunity at the British Antarctic Survey for someone to help us integrate GIS and BIM for infrastructure projects in Antarctica. Details here: shorturl.at/Mf983

You might have spotted oval symbols on sea ice charts. They’re not Easter eggs 🐣 — but they 𝘥𝘰 contain something inside: a compact summary of ice concentration, thickness, and floe size.

📢 We are looking for a Geomatics Surveyor to join our team at the British Antarctic Survey. 📢 Are you a surveyor with experience of collecting & managing geospatial survey data? Would you like to get the opportunity to work at Rothera Research Station? Apply today! Details here: shorturl.at/RwAZV

🎉 Imagery from the newly launched Sentinel-1C Copernicus satellite is now accessible via Polar View www.polarview.aq and the Ice Logistics Portal www.icelogistics.info/antarctic?ce...! This addition significantly increases the repeatability of SAR observations in the Polar Regions 🛰️

Ever wondered how to do snapshot end-to-end testing when you have live map data? If you are using Playwright you can try capturing the HAR traffic and replaying this when the tests are rerun: playwright.dev/docs/mock#mo.... We use this with ArcGIS where it wouldn't be possible to mock .pbf responses

Steal this implementation of a Labelled Graticule Layer for you arcgis apps. It utilises a client side feature layer and the new display filter to control which lines/labels to show. It works for any projection. gist.github.com/JonnyDawe/be... #arcgis #arcgisjs

Did you know that some of our key Antarctic topographic data is in Esri's Living Atlas? We regularly update these services so that your maps will always show the latest authoritative data! livingatlas.arcgis.com/en/browse/?q... For more info: www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/b...

New workflows for adding points in different formats (DDM, DD, DMS etc.) We've implemented a custom graphics layer which persists graphics in local storage - check it out here: gist.github.com/JonnyDawe/8d.... #arcgis #arcgisJS

How would you alert a user to new data being available into a long running application? I've been building a simple notification and synchronise workflow for our Sea Ice Information application that could be up on a ship's bridge running for days.

Revisiting my measurements interaction in our ArcGIS JS application - added in some simple logic to remove text that is longer than the segment length. All just subclassed from the Esri Measurements Sketch View Model! #ArcGIS #ArcGISJSAPI

Back to one of my favourite tasks of iceberg mapping 😄

MAGIC staff are currently deployed at Rothera Research Station, Antarctica. While on site they are undertaking a series of surveys around the local area, including a minimum snow cover survey of the station and monitoring the retreat of the ice ramp that links the station to Adelaide Island.

We use Playwright for end-to-end testing our ArcGIS Applications. This includes some screenshot testing in our CICD process. It was pretty fiddly to get working, has already been catching bugs we weren't even aware off! Check it out here: github.com/antarctica/e... #Arcgis #ArcGISDev

Have you noticed a place without a name during the season? Are you referring to “Glacier A, B or C” in your paper? The Antarctic Place-names Committee are accepting applications for place names - deadline is 17th March. More information about how to apply is here: apc.antarctica.ac.uk

We're developing a new Map Catalogue where you can access a variety of general interest maps, available with an open licence!   You'll also be able to browse our published maps and BAS staff members can access these and other restricted internal maps 🥳   What Polar maps would you like to see here?

Sewagemap.co.uk reached 80,000 views in this last week! It’s even been referenced by the UK environment secretary! Very proud of the reach of this little side project!

www.sewagemap.co.uk now has national coverage! North Devon getting a bit of a pasting right now 💩 💩…

www.sewagemap.co.uk now covers the whole of England. The picture is pretty horrifying.

EO: "the immutable biological reality of sex" Biological reality:

Working on some exciting updates to www.SewageMap.co.uk with @jonnydawe.github.io!!

Beautiful image showing an almost cloud free Stange Ice Shelf with the RRS Sir David Attenborough alongside 🚢 (you’ll need a good eye to spot it!)

Sometimes you have to take joy in the small things... For example watching the dev console fill up because some dependency left a console.log("here") in their library code! 🫣

This was an awesome project to work on! The site was built with Next JS and leaflet for the interactive map!

Work onboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough continues as numerous icebergs drift past to our north. Using a combination of optical and radar satellite imagery, plus regular RPAS flights, we keep watch on any icebergs that might get close enough to interrupt us. Credit Pete Bucktrout & Jamie Oliver.

We are currently onboard the @bas.ac.uk ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, ensuring it has up to date information about sea ice and icebergs to help with safe and efficient navigation. Our SIIS (Sea Ice Information System) delivers sea ice data and satellite imagery directly to the bridge.

We work with a range of satellite imagery in MAGIC, allowing us to look at some beautiful areas of Antarctica! Here's a few recent Sentinel and Landsat images (acquired Nov and Dec 2024, courtesy of Copernicus and USGS). Can anyone name all of the locations or features? 🧊🎄

Optimistic: The glass is 1/2 full. Pessimistic: The glass is 1/2 empty. CSS: The glass is twice as tall as it is wide.

Just shipped a new mapping application to a literal ship – the RRS Sir David Attenborough 🚢! Super proud of the collaborative effort that came together to make this happen at the British Antarctic Survey!

🗺️❄️New mapping blog alert ❄️🗺️ Discover our blog post to explore the latest topographic datasets released in the @scar-antarctic.bsky.social Antarctic Digital Database. We've also got exciting news on the release of versions 1-5 of the Antarctic coastlines from 1993-2010! www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/ant...

Thank god for @odoenet.bsky.social's blog post. odoe.net/blog/react-1.... Was scratching my head at why my custom events names weren't working! I hacked together some adjusted type definitions based on his example: gist.github.com/JonnyDawe/49...