ESSG-based global spatial reference frame for datasets interrelation

Abstract. To know well about the highly complex earth system, a large volume of, as well as a large variety of, datasets on the planet Earth are being obtained, distributed, and shared worldwide everyday. However, seldom of existing systems concentrates on the distribution and interrelation of different datasets in a common Global Spatial Reference Frame (GSRF), which holds an invisble obstacle to the data sharing and scientific collaboration. Group on Earth Obeservation (GEO) has recently established a new GSRF, named Earth System Spatial Grid (ESSG), for global datasets distribution, sharing and interrelation in its 2012–2015 WORKING PLAN.The ESSG may bridge the gap among different spatial datasets and hence overcome the obstacles. This paper is to present the implementation of the ESSG-based GSRF. A reference spheroid, a grid subdvision scheme, and a suitable encoding system are required to implement it. The radius of ESSG reference spheroid was set to the double of approximated Earth radius to make datasets from different areas of earth system science being covered. The same paramerters of positioning and orienting as Earth Centred Earth Fixed (ECEF) was adopted for the ESSG reference spheroid to make any other GSRFs being freely transformed into the ESSG-based GSRF. Spheroid degenerated octree grid with radius refiment (SDOG-R) and its encoding method were taken as the grid subdvision and encoding scheme for its good performance in many aspects. A triple (C, T, A) model is introduced to represent and link different datasets based on the ESSG-based GSRF. Finally, the methods of coordinate transformation between the ESSGbased GSRF and other GSRFs were presented to make ESSG-based GSRF operable and propagable.