• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.543-553
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• 2011

Sea ice concentration calculated from the AMSR-E onboard Aqua satellite by using NASA Team2 sea ice algorithm has proven to be very accurate over sea ice in Antarctic Ocean. When glacial ice such as icebergs and ice shelves are dominant in an AMSR-E footprint, the accuracy of the ice concentration calculated from NASA Team2 algorithm is not well maintained due to the different microwave characteristics of the glacial ice from sea ice. We extracted the concentrations of sea ice and glacial ice from two ENVISAT ASAR images of George V coast in southern Antarctica, and compared them with NASA Team2 sea ice concentration. The result showed that the NASA Team2 algorithm underestimates the concentration of glacial ice. To interpret the large deviation of estimation over glacial ice, we analyzed the characteristics of microwave radiation of the glacial ice in PR(polarization ratio), GR(spectral gradient ratio), $PR_R$(rotated PR), and ${\Delta}GR$ domain. We found that glacial ice occupies a unique region in the PR, GR, $PR_R$, and ${\Delta}GR$ domain different from other types of ice such as ice type A, B, and C, and open water. This implies that glacial ice can be added as a new category of ice to the AMSR-E NASA Team2 sea ice algorithm.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.687-701
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• 2014

Sea ice is generally accepted as an important factor to understand the process of earth climate changes and is the basis of earth system models for analysis and prediction of the climate changes. To continuously monitor sea ice changes at kilometer scale, it is demanded to create more accurate grid data from the current, limited sea ice data. In this paper we described a downscaling method for Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) Sea Ice Concentration (SIC) from 10 km to 1 km resolution using a weighting scheme of sea ice days ratio derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sea ice cover product that has a high correlation with the SIC. In a case study for Okhotsk Sea, the sea ice areas of both data (before and after downscaling) were identical, and the monthly means and standard deviations of SIC exhibited almost the same values. Also, Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analyses showed that three kinds of SIC data (ERA-Interim, original AMSR2, and downscaled AMSR2) had very similar principal components for spatial and temporal variations. Our method can apply to downscaling of other continuous variables in the form of ratio such as percentage and can contribute to monitoring small-scale changes of sea ice by providing finer SIC data.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.189-195
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• 2012

The ice trials of the first Korean icebreaking research vessel "ARAON" were performed at the Arctic Ocean in July-August 2010. The sea ice concentrations of Arctic Ocean were 4/10 to 10/10 and the range of sea ice thickness was roughly 1.0 to 3.5m. In this research, sea ice thickness characteristics at the old ice floes were determined from results of drill hole and apparent conductivity measurements. Especially we measured apparent conductivity using an electromagnetic induction instrument (EM31-MK2) and estimated the sea ice thickness through the empirical equation from Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory, CRREL. The results of estimated sea ice thickness were compared to drill hole measurement results and then, we suggest the new empirical equation to estimate sea ice thickness of single layer type sea ice during the summer season of Arctic Ocean by curve fitting approach to these data.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.507-520
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• 2007

Satellite passive microwave(PM) sensors have been observing polar sea ice concentration(SIC), ice temperature, and snow depth since 1970s. Among them SIC is playing an important role in the various studies as it is considered the first factor for the monitoring of global climate and environment changes. Verification and correction of PM SIC is essential for this purpose. In this study, we calculated SIC from KOMPSAT-1 EOC images obtained from Arctic sea ice edges from July to August 2005 and compared with SSM/I SIC calculated from NASA Team(NT) algorithm. When we have no consideration of sea ice types, EOC and SSM/I NT SIC showed low correlation coefficient of 0.574. This is because there are differences in spatial resolution and observing time between two sensors, and the temporal and spatial variation of sea ice was high in summer Arctic ice edge. For the verification of SSM/I NT SIC according to sea ice types, we divided sea ice into land-fast ice, pack ice, and drift ice from EOC images, and compared them with SSM/I NT SIC corresponding to each ice type. The concentration of land-fast ice between EOC and SSM/I SIC were calculated very similarly to each other with the mean difference of 0.38%. This is because the temporal and spatial variation of land-fast ice is small, and the snow condition on the ice surface is relatively dry. In case of pack ice, there were lots of ice ridge and new ice that are known to be underestimated by NT algorithm. SSM/I NT SIC were lower than EOC SIC by 19.63% in average. In drift ice, SSM/I NT SIC showed 20.17% higher than EOC SIC in average. The sea ice with high concentration could be included inside the wide IFOV of SSM/I because the drift ice was located near the edge of pack ice. It is also suggested that SSM/I NT SIC overestimated the drift ice covered by wet snow.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.677-686
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• 2014

Sea ice covers wide area in Terra Nova Bay in East Antarctica where the Jangbogo Antarctic Research Station was built in 2014, which affects greatly on the sailing of an icebreaker research vessel. In this study, we analyzed the optimum sea route and sailable period of the icebreaker to visit the Jangbogo Antarctic Research Station by using sea ice concentration data observed by passive microwave sensors such as Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) for the last decade, and by using sea route of the Araon, an icebreaker of Republic of Korea, from 2010 to 2012. It is found that Araon sailed in the route of sea ice concentration up to 78%. Sailing speed of the Araon decreased due to increasing sea ice concentration. However, Araon maintained the speed close to the average speed for the entire sailing period (~11 kn) in the route of sea ice concentration up to 70%. Therefore, we confirm that the Araon can sail typically in the route which shows sea ice concentration below 70%. We derived annually available sailing period in recent 10 years for the sea route of the Araon in 2010, 2011 and 2012, which is defined as the period showing sea ice concentration below 70% through the route. Maximum sailable period was analyzed to be 61 and 62 days for the route of the Araon in 2010 and 2011, respectively. However, the typical sailing in the routes was unavailable in some years because sea ice concentration was higher than 70% through the routes. Meanwhile, the sailable period for the routes of the Araon in 2012 was observed in every year, which was a minimum of 15 days and is a maximum of 89 days. Therefore, we could suggest that optimum route of icebreaker to visit the Jangbogo Antarctic Research Station is the route of the Araon in 2012. High resolution images from SAR or optical sensors are necessary to investigate sea ice condition near shoreline of Jangbogo research station due to several kilometers of low resolution of sea ice concentration.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.281-288
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• 2018

The transmission of solar light according to the distribution of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) was measured in the Pacific Arctic Ocean. The Research Vessel Araon visited the ice-covered East Siberian and Chukchi Seas in August 2016. In the Arctic, solar [ultraviolet-A (UV-A), ultraviolet-B (UV-B), and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)] radiation reaching the surface of the ocean is primarily protected by the distribution of sea ice. The transmission of solar light in the ocean is controlled by sea ice and dissolved organic matter, such as CDOM. The concentration of CDOM is the major factor controlling the penetration depth of UV radiation into the ocean. The relative CDOM concentration of surface sea water was higher in the East Siberian Sea than in the Chukchi Sea. Due to the distribution of CDOM, the penetration depth of solar light in the East Siberian Sea (UV-B, $9{\pm}2m$; UV-A, $13{\pm}2m$; PAR, $36{\pm}4m$) was lower than in the Chukchi Sea (UV-B, $15{\pm}3m$; UV-A, $22{\pm}3m$; PAR, $49{\pm}3m$). Accelerated global warming and the rapid decrease of sea ice in the Arctic have resulted in marine organisms being exposed to increased harmful UV radiation. With changes in sea ice covered areas and concentrations of dissolved organic matter in the Arctic Ocean, marine ecosystems that consist of a variety of species from primary producers to high-trophic-level organisms will be directly or indirectly affected by solar UV radiation.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2012

Sea ice properties have been considered a key indicator in the structural design criteria of icebreaking vessels and arctic offshore platforms to estimate design ice load and resistance for their safety management in Arctic Ocean. A measurement study of sea ice properties was conducted during July to August of 2011 with the Korean icebreaking research vessel "Araon" around Chukchi Borderland. The sea ice concentration appears to be rapidly decreasing during this cruise. Ice condition seems to be thick second-year ice and multi-year ice and then, a lot of melt ponds were observed in the surface of ice floe. Calculated flexural strength of sea ice was about 250~550kPa, ice thickness was roughly 1.3~3.0m. In this research we performed field experiment to measure ice temperature along the depth, thickness, density, salinity, brine volume ratio and crystal structure. Apparent conductivities derived with the electromagnetic induction instrument were compared to drill hole measurement results and accuracy of sea ice thickness estimation formula was discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.1019-1022
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• 2006

Satellite sea ice data from 1978 to the present reveal that the perennial ice (or ice that survives the summer) has been rapidly declining at almost 10% per decade. Warming due to increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now also being reflected in winter with drastic reductions in the maximum extent observed in 2005 and 2006. The retreat of the perennial ice also exposes more open water and has revealed an asymmetric distribution of chlorophyll a pigment concentration in the Arctic basin. Phytoplankton blooms are most dominant at high latitudes, partly on account of sea ice, but in the Arctic basin, it appears that pigment concentrations in the Eastern (Laptev Sea) Region are on the average three times higher than those in the Western (Beaufort Sea) Region. Such asymmetry suggests that despite favorable conditions provided by the melt of sea ice, there are other factors that affects the productivity of the region. The asymmetry is likely associated with much wider shelf areas in the East than in the West, with sea ice processes that inhibits the availability of nutrients near the surface in deep water regions, and river run-off that affects nutrient availability. The primary productivity in the pan-Arctic region have been estimated using the pigment concentrations and PAR derived from SeaWiFS data and the results show large seasonal as well as interannual variability during the 1998 to 2005 period. The data points towards increasing productivity for later years but with only 9 years of data it is too early to tell the overall effect of the sea ice retreat.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.390-395
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• 2011

The main purpose of ice model basin is to assess and evaluate the performance of the Arctic ships and offshore structures because the full-scale tests in ice covered sea are usually very expensive and difficult. There are various ice conditions, such as level ice, brash ice, pack ice and ice ridge, in the real sea. To estimate their capacities in ice tank accurately, an appropriate model ice sheet and prepared ice conditions copied from actual sea ice conditions are needed. Pack ice is a floating ice that has been driven together into a single mass and a mixture of ice fragments of varying size and age that are squeezed together and cover the sea surface with little or no open water. So Ice-class vessels and Icebreaker are usually operated in pack ice conditions for the long time of her voyage. The most ice model tests include the pack ice test with the change of pack ice concentration. In this paper, the effect of pack ice size and channel breadth in pack ice model test is conducted and analyzed. Also we presented some techniques for the calculation of pack ice concentration in the model test. Finally, we developed a new model test methodology of pack ice condition in square type ice tank.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.456-461
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• 1999

It is very important for monitoring the interannual variability of sea ice extents in the Okhotsk Sea because the global warming has firstly appeared around the Okhotsk Sea, locating around the southernmost region of sea ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere. In order to develop the sea ice concentration algorithm by microwave sensors onboard satellite, electromagnetic properties of sea ice in the Okhotsk Sea, therefore, were observed by airborne microwave radiometer (AMR), which has the same frequencies as AMSR (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer), ADEOS-II, launching on November, 2000. On this study, it is discussed how to make the image of AMR-EFOV and the video image with nadir angle under flight at the same time, and superimpose the brightness temperature data by AMR-EFOV on the video mosaiced images. For comparing SPOT image, it is clearly that the variation of brightness temperature is small in 89GHz V-pol without the sea ice types and increase at the lower frequency-band.