Establishing a sustainable and cross-boundary geospatial cyberinfrastructure to enable polar research

Polar Regions become increasingly important as places for (1) natural resources, (2) sensitive indicators of human activities and global, environment, and climate changes, (3) preserving histories of the Earth and biological evolution, and (4) space–Earth interactions and answers to many other 21st century challenges. To facilitate the research, exploration, and development for better understanding, utilizing, and protecting the Polar Regions, a Geospatial CyberInfrastructure (GCI) is needed to help us collect data, integrate information gathered or data in real time from in situ and satellite sensors, and model the geophysical, biological, ecological, and social phenomena to provide better decision support information for policymakers. This special issue of GCI and polar research captures the recent advancements in polar research and the requirements for a GCI. Through a rigorous review process, four papers were selected based on their relationships to polar research and their scientific/technical merits. This paper is a review that surveys the field, introduces the selected papers, and discusses future research.