• Title/Summary/Keyword: Arctic Warming

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Probabilistic Strength Assessment of Ice Specimen considering Spatial Variation of Material Properties (물성치의 공간분포를 고려한 빙 시험편의 확률론적 강도평가)

  • Kim, Hojoon;Kim, Yooil
    • Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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    • v.57 no.2
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    • pp.80-87
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    • 2020
  • As the Arctic sea ice decreases due to various reasons such as global warming, the demand for ships and offshore structures operating in the Arctic region is steadily increasing. In the case of sea ice, the anisotropy is caused by the uncertainty inside the material. For most of the research, nevertheless, estimating the ice load has been treated deterministically. With regard to this, in this paper, a four-point bending strength analysis of an ice specimen was attempted using a stochastic finite element method. First, spatial distribution of the material properties used in the yield criterion was assumed to be a multivariate Gaussian random field. After that, a direct method, which is a sort of stochastic finite element method, and a sensitivity method using the sensitivity of response for random variables were proposed for calculating the probabilistic distribution of ice specimen strength. A parametric study was conducted with different mean vectors and correlation lengths for each material property used in the above procedure. The calculation time was about ten seconds for the direct method and about three minutes for the sensitivity methods. As the cohesion and correlation length increased, the mean value of the critical load and the standard deviation increased. On the contrary, they decreased as the friction angle increased. Also, in all cases, the direct and sensitivity methods yielded very similar results.

Species Composition and Distribution of Korean Alpine Plants (한반도 고산식물의 구성과 분포)

  • 공우석
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.37 no.4
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    • pp.357-370
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    • 2002
  • Present work aims to investigate the species composition, physiognomy and distribution of arctic-alpine and alpine plants(AAP) of the Korean Peninsula. The dominance of AAP in the northern Korea may be due to the frequent exchanges of floras with circumpolar regions for the seek of the glacial refugia during the alternate Pleistocene glacial epochs. The post-glacial climatic amelioration pushed AAP back northwards and upwards, so they now shows disjunctive distribution on separate mountain tops. The diverse morphological adaptations of AAP to severe environmental conditions, viz. the dominance of perennial species, stunted tree growth, multiple protection of leaves, krummholz, and dwarf shrubs, are the result of long-term graduall development which have safeguarded the survival of AAP in a such a harsh cryo-climatic area. The appearance of the Korean endemic AAP reflects the long-term isolation of species in Korea, and the local environmental diversities which have both accentuated this isolation and aided the development of genetic diversity. Evergreen broad-leaved AAP at c. 1,500m to 1,800m and above are now endangered because of the competition from down-slope plants, and from the global warming.

An Analysis of Operational Efficiency and Productivity for deep-sea fishing vessels in the North Pacific Ocean (북태평양 조업선박의 운영 효율성 및 생산성 분석)

  • Cho, Wooyoun;Jo, Geonsik;Yeo, Gitae
    • Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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    • v.30 no.2
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    • pp.113-132
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    • 2014
  • With the global warming phenomenon, the deep sea water area that fishing vessels can enter and operate is ever widening. For example, the Arctic Ocean recently has overall competitive advantages due to having many deep-sea fish stocks. The North Pacific region is a strategic coastal district, the closest access point of Arctic Ocean. For Korean fishing vessels which now operate in North Pacific region, and want to entry the Arctic Ocean, the analysis of technical efficiency is needed for preparing the better industry's future. This paper aims to analyze the relative efficiency, and select the low effective deep-sea fishing vessels in the North Pacific, and to suggest their desirables strategies. As a research methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist Index are applied to 16 fishing vessels for the periods(2009 to 2013). To draw out the efficiency of targeted deep-sea fishing vessels, gross tons, horsepowers, and operating days are used as input variables while total catch stands for an output variable. As a result, CCR efficiency, BCC efficiency and scalability efficiency are measured to be 0.8405, 0.9484 and 0.8858 respectively for 5 years (2009 to 2013). In conclusion, 38% of total tons, 36% of horsepowers and 29% of operating days each fishing vessel should be reduced to keep their competitive powers.

Artificial Sea Ice Increasing to Mitigate Global Warming (지구 온난화 경감을 위한 인공해빙증가)

  • Byun, Hi-Ryong;Park, Chang-Kyun
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.36 no.6
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    • pp.501-511
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    • 2015
  • This study suggests a method of alleviating global warming by the increase of the Earth surface albedo through Artificial Sea ice Increasing (ASI) over the Available Freezing Areas (AFA). The method is developed based on the fact that the large sea surface area in or near the Arctic and the Antarctic has no ice even though both water and air temperatures are below zero and the artificial sea ice generation is thus available. The mean energy of $0.85Wm^{-2}$, which was suspected of adding to the earth by the global warming effect was calculated to offset at once when the sea ice area about $4.09{\times}10^6km^2$ was additionally increased. In addition, three techniques for producing ice plates on the sea surface (using ships, installation apparatus, and floating matter such as Green Cell Foam) for ASI were proposed. According to the result of simple analysis using the energy balance model, when ASI was maximally operated only for 3 months (September, October, and November) over AFA, it is expected that the annual mean temperature of earth surface would be decreased about $0.11^{\circ}C$ in the following year. On the other hand, in case of generating the artificial sea ice in all four seasons, a risk of triggering snowball earth was detected.

Methane hydrate : The state of the art of Production technologies and environmental issues (메탄 하이드레이트의 생산 기술 현황과 환경에 미치는 영향)

  • Chang Seung yong
    • The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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    • v.7 no.1_2 s.8
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    • pp.13-18
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    • 1999
  • Methane hydrate is an ice-like solid material and it has a structure which water molecules enclose gas molecules. For low temperature and high pressure, hydrocarbon gas forms hydrate and due to this condition, it is existed in the arctic region or deep sea. Presently, the amount of methane hydrate is unpredictable, but it is assumed that the amount will be enormous. For this reason, it is expected that it will play a major role as natural gas resources in the future. However, the production technologies are stayed on the low level and the economical technology was not developed yet. Also, emission of natural gas from methane hydrate will cause global warming and thus it is considered as a critical environmental problem. In this paper, the state of the art of the production technologies and environmental effects of methane hydrate were summarized.

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Assessment of Climate Variability over East Asia-Korea for 2015/16 Winter (2015/16 겨울 동아시아-한반도 기후 특성 분석)

  • Jeong, Jee-Hoon;Park, Tae-Won;Choi, Ja-Hyun;Son, Seok-Woo;Song, Kanghyun;Kug, Jong-Seong;Kim, Baek-Min;Kim, Hyun-kyung;Yim, So-Young
    • Atmosphere
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.337-345
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    • 2016
  • This paper is to assess the state of climate over East Asia and Korea during 2015/16 winter. There was a distinct intraseasonal climate variation during the period: the record-breaking warmth in December 2015 vs. strong cold surge outbreaks in January 2016. It is suggested that the anomalous warming in December 2015 was contributed by an intensification of Kuroshio anticyclone associated with 2015/16 El $Ni{\tilde{n}}o$ and polar vortex intensification. In January 2016, a strong cold surge outbroke over East Asia bringing severe cold more than two weeks. The cold surge was a blocking-type one which followed extremely negative AO developed from early January. It was suggested that the intensification of cold surge might be contributed indirectly by a strong Arctic warming and MJO activity during the period.

Revisit the Cause of the Cold Surge in Jeju Island Accompanied by Heavy Snow in January 2016 (2016년 1월 폭설을 동반한 제주도 한파의 원인 재고찰)

  • Han, Kwang-Hee;Ku, Ho-Young;Bae, Hyo-Jun;Kim, Baek-Min
    • Atmosphere
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.207-221
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    • 2022
  • In Jeju, on January 23, 2016, a cold surge accompanied by heavy snowfall with the most significant amount of 12 cm was the highest record in 32 years. During this period, the temperature of 850 hPa in January was the lowest in 2016. Notably, in 2016, the average surface temperature of January on the Polar cap was the highest since 1991, and 500 hPa geopotential height also showed the highest value. With this condition, the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere meandered and expanded into the subtropics regionally, covering the Korean Peninsula with very high potential vorticity up to 7 Potential Vorticity Unit. As a result, the strong cold advection, mostly driven by a northerly wind, around the Korean Peninsula occurred at over 2𝜎. Previous studies have not addressed this extreme synoptic condition linked to polar vortex expansion due to the unprecedented Arctic warming. We suggest that the occurrence of a strong Ural blocking event after the abrupt warming of the Barents/Karas seas is a major cause of unusually strong cold advection. With a specified mesoscale model simulation with SST (Sea Surface Temperature), we also show that the warmer SST condition near the Korean Peninsula contributed to the heavy snowfall event on Jeju Island.

A study of Accuracy Assessment of Digital Elevation Model in the Greenland (그린란드 수치표고모델의 수직정확도 검증에 관한 연구)

  • Park, Ho Joon;Choi, Yun Soo;Kim, Jae Myeong
    • Spatial Information Research
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.59-65
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    • 2014
  • Recently, increasing demand for 'Digital Elevation Model(DEM)' to climate change research and various development by global warming in the Arctic region. So we need to verify the accuracy to utilize DEM. In this research, we verified 'ASTER GDEM' and 'GIMP DEM' in several DEM which constructed in the Greenland that most of the area is covered ice sheet. We divided greenland into two part, ice sheet area and non ice sheet area by using the ESA globcover. Then, comparing a difference between 'ASTER DEM', 'GIMP DEM' and ICESat elevation data to verify the accuracy. As a result, GIMP DEM has higher accuracy in ice sheet area and ASTER GDEM has higher accuracy in non-ice sheet area.

Biogeographic Feature of North Korean Ecosystem (북한 자연생태계의 생물지리적 특성)

  • Kong, Woo-Seok
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.157-172
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    • 2002
  • This work aims to collect a biogeographic informations on the biota, alpine ecosystem, nature reserves, forest ecosystem of North Korea, and also to accumulate a basic data on the current situation and problem of the natural ecosystem of North Korea for the preparation of future cooperation and exchange between South and North Koreas. The obtained findings are as follow. First, North Korean biota contains 18,013 species, and consists of 6,710 plant species, including 3,860 species of vascular plants. Secondly, urgent investigation on the biogeographically important arctic-alpine and alpine plants and ecosystem, those are known to be endangered due to environmental change and global warming, is required. Thirdly, the conservations of diverse nature in North Korea are conducted by the introduction of various systems, such as nature preservation region, reserves for plant, animal and sea bird, and natural monuments. Fourthly, out of 9.5 million hectares of forest, one million hectares have already faced forest denudation, thus caused lots of damages for forest ecosystem. Sharp decline of North Korean forest land are due mainly to the expansion of terraced dry-field farming and deforestation. Recovery of denudated forest land should be approached by both South and North Korean sides to solve the problem of shortage of foods and restoration of natural ecosystem of North Korea.

Grounding Line Change of Ronne Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, from 1996 to 2015 Observed by using DDInSAR

  • Han, Soojeong;Han, Hyangsun;Lee, Hoonyol
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.34 no.1
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    • pp.17-24
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    • 2018
  • Grounding line of a glacier or ice shelf where ice bottom meets the ocean is sensitive to changes in the polar environment. Recent rapid changes of grounding lines have been observed especially in southwestern Antarctica due to global warming. In this study, ERS-1/2 and Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image were interferometrically acquired in 1996 and 2015, respectively, to monitor the movement of the grounding line in the western part of Ronne Ice Shelf near the Antarctic peninsula. Double-Differential Interferometric SAR (DDInSAR) technique was applied to remove gravitational flow signal to detect grounding line from the interferometric phase due to the vertical displacement of the tide. The result showed that ERS-1/2 grounding lines are almost consistent with those from Rignot et al. (2011) which used the similar dataset, confirming the credibility of the data processing. The comparison of ERS-1/2 and Sentinle-1A DDInSAR images showed a grounding line retreat of $1.0{\pm}0.1km$ from 1996 to 2015. It is also proved that the grounding lines based on the 2004 MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) images and digital elevation model searching for ice plain near coastal area (Scambos et al., 2017), is not accurate enough especially where there is a ice plain with no tidal motion.