• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.461-476
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• 2015

Global warming has accelerated glacial retreat in the high Arctic. The exposed glacier foreland is an ideal place to study chronosequential changes in ecosystems. Although vegetation succession in the glacier forelands has been studied intensively, little is known about the microbial community structure in these environments. Therefore, this study focused on how glacial retreat influences the bacterial community structure and its relationship with soil properties. This study was conducted in the foreland of the Midtre Lovénbreen glacier in Svalbard (78.9°N). Seven soil samples of different ages were collected and analyzed for moisture content, pH, soil organic carbon and total nitrogen contents, and soil organic matter fractionation. In addition, the structure of the bacterial community was determined via pyrosequencing analysis of 16S rRNA genes. The physical and chemical properties of soil varied significantly along the distance from the glacier; with increasing distance, more amounts of clay and soil organic carbon contents were observed. In addition, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria were dominant in soil samples taken close to the glacier, whereas Acidobacteria were abundant further away from the glacier. Diversity indices indicated that the bacterial community changed from homogeneous to heterogeneous structure along the glacier chronosequence/distance from the glacier. Although the bacterial community structure differed on basis of the presence or absence of plants, the soil properties varied depending on soil age. These findings suggest that bacterial succession occurs over time in glacier forelands but on a timescale that is different from that of soil development.

• Journal of the Speleological Society of Korea
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• no.63
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• pp.61-79
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• 2004

The Franz Josef Glacier is sited 250 m above sea level. The moisture westerly winds from Tasman Sea and the feature of the alp geomorphology have made the Franz Josef Slatier. That is why the Franz Josef Slatier is. The Franz Josef Slatier has receded during the past century in response to global warming since the end of the Little ice Age in the 1890s. Even between 2002 and 2003, the Franz Josef Glacier is confirmed retreat ins. This is confirmed by climate factors. The expressing of the Franz Josef Slatier retreating in 2003 which is advanced air temperature and amount of precipitation in 1998 than compared another years. There are lots of metamorphic rock as known biotite, schist, greywack and the Alpine Fault is passing near the Franz Josef Glacier. The grooved and scratching trend surface the rock are observed as the evidence of retreating glacier left.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.417-426
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• 2023

Rapid climate change has resulted in glacial retreat and increased meltwater inputs in the Antarctic Peninsula, including King George Island where Marian Cove is located. Consequently, these phenomena are expected to induce changes in the water column light properties, which in turn will affect phytoplankton communities. To comprehend the effects of glacial retreat on the marine ecosystem in Marian Cove, we investigated on phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll-a, chl-a) and various environment parameters in this area in December 2021 and January 2022. The average temperature at the euphotic depth in January 2022 (1.41 ± 0.13 ℃) was higher than that in December 2021 (0.87 ± 0.17 ℃). Contrastingly, the average salinity was lower in January 2022 (33.9 ± 0.10 psu) than in December 2021 (34.1 ± 0.12 psu). Major nutrients, including dissolved inorganic nitrogen, phosphate, and silicate, were sufficiently high, and thus, did not act as limiting factors for phytoplankton biomass. In December 2021 and January 2022, the mean chl-a concentrations were 1.03 ± 0.64 and 0.66 ± 0.15㎍ L^-1, respectively. The mean concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM) was 24.9 ± 3.54 mgL^-1 during the study period, with elevated values observed in the vicinity of the inner glacier. However, relative lower chl-a concentrations were observed near the inner glacier, possibly due to high SPM load from the glacier, resulting in reduced light attenuation by SPM shading. Furthermore, the proportion of nanophytoplankton exceeded 70% in the inner cove, contributing to elevated mean fractions of nanophytoplankton in the glacier retreat marine ecosystem. Overall, our study indicated that freshwater and SPM inputs from glacial meltwater may possibly act as main factors controlling the dynamics of phytoplankton communities in glacier retreat areas. The findings may also serve as fundamental data for better understanding the carbon cycle in Marian Cove.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.491-502
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• 2019

Distinguishing debris-covered glaciers from debris-free glaciers is difficult when using only optical remote sensing images to extract glacier boundaries.According to the features that the surface temperature of debris-covered glacier is lower than surrounding objects, and higher than clean glaciers, glacial changes in the Yigong Zangbo basin was analyzed on the basis of visible, near-infrared and thermal-infrared band images of Landsat TM and OLI/TIRS in the support of ancillary digital elevation model (DEM). The results indicated that glacier area gradually declined from $928.76km^2$ in 1990 to $918.46km^2$ in 2000 and $901.51km^2$ in 2015. However, debris-covered glacier area showed a slight increase from $63.39km^2$ in 1990 to $66.24km^2$ in 2000 and $71.16km^2$ in 2015. During 25 years, the glacier length became shorter continuously with terminus elevation rising up. The area of moraine lakes in 1990 was $1.43km^2$, which increased to $1.98km^2$ in 2000 and $3.41km^2$ in 2015. In other words, the total area of the moraine lakes in 2015 is 2.38 times of that in 1990. This increase in moraine lake area could be the result of accelerated glacier melt and retreat, which is consistent with the significant warming trend in recent decades in the basin.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2014

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in the Arctic is vulnerable to climate change. However, research on SOC stored in the high Arctic regions is currently very limited. Thus, this study was aimed at understanding the distribution and characteristics of SOC with respect to geomorphology and vegetation in Svalbard. In August 2011, soil samples were collected near the Vestre Lov$\acute{e}$nbreen moraine. Sampling sites were chosen according to altitude (High, Mid, and Low) and differences in levels of vegetation establishment. Vegetation coverage, aboveground biomass, and SOC contents were measured, and density-size fractionation of SOC was conducted. The SOC content was the highest in the Mid site ($126.9mg\;g^{-1}$) and the lowest in the High site ($32.1mg\;g^{-1}$), although aboveground biomass and vegetation coverage were not different between these two sites. The low SOC content measured at the High site could be related to a slower soil development following glacial retreat. On the other hand, the Low site contained a high amount of SOC despite having low vegetative cover and a high ratio of sand particles. These incompatible relationships between SOC and vegetation in the Low site might be associated with past site disturbances such as runoff from snow/glacier melting. This study showed that geomorphological features combined with glacier retreat or melting snow/glacier effects could have affected the SOC distribution and vegetation establishment in the high Arctic.

• 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.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2004

Sedimentary facies and high-resolution echo facies were analyzed to elucidate sedimentation pattern of the late Quaternary glacial-marine deposits in the northern continental margin of the South Shetland Islands. Six sedimentary facies are classified, based on grain texture and sedimentary structures in gravity cores. The high-resolution (3.5 ㎑) echo characters are classified into 6 echo facies on the basis of clarity, continuity, and shape of bottom and subbottom echoes together with seafloor topography. Distribution of the echo and sedimentary facies suggest that there was a significant change in sedimentation pattern between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and subsequent glacier-retreating period. When the grounded glaciers extended to the present shelfbreak during LGM, coarse-grained subglacial tills were widespread in the shelf area, and deep troughs in the shelf were carved beneath the fast-flowing ice steam. As the glacial margin retreated landward after LGM, dense meltwater plumes released from the retreating ice-front were funneled along the glacier-carved troughs, and accumulated channel- or cannyon-fill deposits in the shelf and the upper to mid slope. At that time, slope sediments seem to have been reworked by slope failures and unsteady contour currents, and further transported by fine-grained turbidity currents along the South Shetland Trench. After the glacial retreat, sediments in the shelf and slope areas have been mainly introduced by persistent (hemi) pelagic settling, and fine-grained turbidity currents frequently occur along the axis of the South Shetland Trench.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1D
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• pp.121-128
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• 2009

The King George Island, where the King Sejong Station is located, represents one of the gateways to the Antarctica from the point of its geographical aspect. It also serves as an advanced post, and plays an important role in the extending for Korea's Antarctic research activities. The existence of maps is not only a basic element for the constructing geographic informations supporting these activities, but also an implied way of announcing the sovereignty over the KingSejong Station in global world. However, the precise surveying for the geographic information has not been carried out, and thus topographical maps as well as geographic information assuring enough accuracy are still missed in this area. This fact had forced Korea to rely on using maps produced by foreign countries. Therefore, this study aims to generate digital topographical maps of 1: 5,000 scale for the constructing geographic information using lightweight aerial photogrammetry system first. And further, it will contribute to offer practical base data for the future research related to the Antarctic environment through the analysis of glacier retreat and change using this new digital map comparing with existing one.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.2 s.113
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• pp.150-167
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• 2006

This study was conducted to determine the pedogenesis of dense subsurface horizons (denoted either Bx or Bd) observed within closed depressions and in toeslope positions at loess-covered glacial tillplains in southern Wisconsin. Some of these dense subsurface horizons, especially those occurring within depressions, show a close morphological resemblance to fragipans elsewhere, even though the existence of fragipans has not been previously reported in southern Wisconsin. The spatial occurrence of fragipans was first examined over the landscape to characterize general soil-landscape relationships. Detailed physico-chemical and micromorphological analyses were followed to investigate the development of fragipans within a closed depression along a catenary sequence. The formation of fragipans at the study site is a result of sequential processes of physical ripening and accumulation of colloidal materials. A very coarse prismatic structure with a closely packed soil matrix was formed via physical ripening processes of loess deposited in small glacial lakes and floodplains that existed soon after the retreat of the last glacier. The physically formed dense horizons became hardened by the accumulation of colloidal materials, notably amorphous Si. The accumulation intensity of amorphous Si varies with mass balance relationships, which are governed by topography and local drainage conditions. Well-developed Bx horizons evolve at closed depressions where net accumulation of amorphous Si occurs, but the collapsed layers remain as Bd horizons at other locations where soluble Si has continuously been removed downslope or downvalley. Hydromorphic processes caused by the presence of fragipans are degrading upper parts of the prisms, resulting in the formation of an eluvial fragic horizon (Ex).