Polar Regions
In the polar regions, a different convention is used. South of 80°S, UPS South (Universal Polar Stereographic) is used instead of a UTM projection. The west half-circle forms a grid zone with designation A; the east half-circle forms one with designation B; see figure 3. North of 84°N, UPS North is used, and the west half-circle is Y, the east one is Z; see figure 4. Since the letters A, B, Y, and Z are not used for any latitude bands of UTM, their presence in an MGRS coordinate, with the omission of a zone number, indicates that the coordinates are in the UPS system.
The lettering scheme for 100,000 m squares is slightly different in the polar regions. The row letters go from A to Z, omitting I and O. The column letters use a more restricted alphabet, going from A to Z but omitting I, O, D, E, M, N, V, W; the columns are arranged so that the rightmost column in grid zone A and Y has column letter Z, and the next column in grid zone B or Z starts over with column letter A. The restricted column alphabet for UPS ensures that no UPS square will be adjacent to a UTM square with the same identification.
In the polar regions, there is only one version of the lettering scheme.
Read more about this topic: Military Grid Reference System
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