By agreement with him Spanish Polar Committee (national authority with powers over Antarctica and the Arctic), the station is part of the projects to be developed during the Spanish Antarctic campaign between 2019-2020 in the Spanish Antarctic Base Juan Carlos I.

The station will improve the global reference geodetic system and will be one of the 110 GNSS stations of the ERGNSS essential as support for navigation and land positioning. With this new station you can have continuous data in a permanent snow environment near the sea, which in Spain only occurs sporadically.

It is also intended, among other objectives, the use of techniques such as GNSS reflectometry to measure both snow layer variation and sea level variation, a critical aspect in monitoring climate change. This technique is being used in different seasons in the Iberian Peninsula but it is not possible to generalize it due to the low casuistry of extreme weather conditions.

In addition, the European geo-positioning system Galileo, in which Fomento actively participates, is designed to offer reliable positioning at latitudes close to 80º, not yet having in our GNSS network a station with a latitude similar to that intended to be installed.

Finally, the station will also enable applied research in conditions that only occur sporadically in Spain and in scarce and very specific locations.



Source of new