• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2023

This study applied a metagenomic analysis of the penguins' gut microbiome from fecal samples of Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) and Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) living along the Ross Sea, Antarctica. As a result of taxonomic analysis, 7 phyla and 18 families were mainly present in the gut microbiome of Adélie and Emperor penguins. To assess microbial diversity, we performed alpha diversity and OTU abundance analyses. It was confirmed that the Adélie Penguin's gut microbial species had a higher diversity than Emperor Penguin's. Based on the Beta diversity analysis using PCoA, differences were observed in the clustering between Adélie and Emperor penguins, respectively. Through the KEGG pathway analysis using PICRUSt, the nucleoside and nucleotide biosynthesis pathway was the most prevalent in Adélie and Emperor penguins. This study enabled a comparison and analysis of the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome in Adélie and Emperor Penguins. It could be utilized for future research related to penguin feeding habits and could serve as a foundation for analyzing the gut microbiomes of various other Antarctic organisms.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_1
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• pp.933-944
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• 2019

This study analyzes the tide deformation of land boundary regions on the east (Region A) and west (Region B) sides of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica using Double-Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DDInSAR). A total of seven Sentinel-1A SAR images acquired in 2015-2016 were used to estimate the accuracy of tide prediction model and Young's modulus of ice shelf. First, we compared the Ross Sea Height-based Tidal Inverse (Ross_Inv) model, which is a representative tide prediction model for the Antarctic Ross Sea, with the tide deformation of the ice shelf extracted from the DDInSAR image. The accuracy was analyzed as 3.86 cm in the east region of Ross Ice Shelf and it was confirmed that the inverse barometric pressure effect must be corrected in the tide model. However, in the east, it is confirmed that the tide model may be inaccurate because a large error occurs even after correction of the atmospheric effect. In addition, the Young's modulus of the ice was calculated on the basis of the one-dimensional elastic beam model showing the correlation between the width of the hinge zone where the tide strain occurs and the ice thickness. For this purpose, the grounding line is defined as the line where the displacement caused by the tide appears in the DDInSAR image, and the hinge line is defined as the line to have the local maximum/minimum deformation, and the hinge zone as the area between the two lines. According to the one-dimensional elastic beam model assuming a semi-infinite plane, the width of the hinge region is directly proportional to the 0.75 power of the ice thickness. The width of the hinge zone was measured in the area where the ground line and the hinge line were close to the straight line shown in DDInSAR. The linear regression analysis with the 0.75 power of BEDMAP2 ice thickness estimated the Young's modulus of 1.77±0.73 GPa in the east and west of the Ross Ice Shelf. In this way, more accurate Young's modulus can be estimated by accumulating Sentinel-1 images in the future.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2018

A gravity core (RS14-C2) was collected at site RS14-C2 in the continental slope to the east of Pennell-Isellin Bank of the Ross Sea (Antarctica) during PNRA XXIX (Rosslope II Project) Expedition. In order to trace the sediment source, magnetic susceptibility (MS), sand fraction, and clay mineral compositions were analyzed, and AMS $^{14}C$ ages were dated. Core sediments consist mostly of hemipelagic sandy clay or silty clay including ice-rafted debris (IRD). AMS $^{14}C$ age of core-top indicates the modern and Holocene sediments. Based on AMS $^{14}C$ dating, sediment color, MS and sand fraction, core sediments are divided into interglacial and glacial intervals. The interglacial brown sediments are characterized by low MS and sand fraction, whereas the glacial gray sediments are characterized by high MS and sand fraction. Among clay mineral compositions of core sediments, illite is highest (61.8~76.7%), and chlorite (15.7~21.3%), kaolinite (3.6~15.4%), and smectite (0.9~5.1%) are in decreasing order, and these compositions are also divided into the interglacial and glacial/deglacial intervals. During the glacial period, the high content of illite and chlorite indicate sediment supply from the bedrocks of Transantarctic Mountains under the Ross Ice Sheet. In contrast, because of decreasing supply of illite and chlorite by the glacial retreat, smectite and kaolinite contents increased relatively during the interglacial period. During the interglacial period, smectite may be transported additionally by the northeastward flowing surface current from the coast of Victoria Land in the western Ross Sea. Kaolinite may be also supplied to the continental slope by the Antarctic Slope Current from the kaolin-rich metasedimentary rock outcropped on the Edward VII Peninsula.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2016

Even if an external forcing that will drive a climate change is given uniformly over the globe, the corresponding climate change and the feedbacks by the climate system differ by region. Thus the detection of global warming signal has been made on a regional scale as well as on a global average against the internal variabilities and other noises involved in the climate change. The purpose of this study is to estimate a timing of unprecedented climate due to global warming and to analyze the regional differences in the estimated results. For this purpose, unlike previous studies that used climate simulation data, we used an observational dataset to estimate a magnitude of internal variability and a future temperature change. We calculated a linear trend in surface temperature using a historical temperature record from 1880 to 2014 and a magnitude of internal variability as the largest temperature displacement from the linear trend. A timing of unprecedented climate was defined as the first year when a predicted minimum temperature exceeds the maximum temperature record in a historical data and remains as such since then. Presumed that the linear trend and the maximum displacement will be maintained in the future, an unprecedented climate over the land would come within 200 years from now in the western area of Africa, the low latitudes including India and the southern part of Arabian Peninsula in Eurasia, the high latitudes including Greenland and the mid-western part of Canada in North America, the low latitudes including Amazon in South America, the areas surrounding the Ross Sea in Antarctica, and parts of East Asia including Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, an unprecedented climate would come later after 400 years in the high latitudes of Eurasia including the northern Europe, the middle and southern parts of North America including the U.S.A. and Mexico. For the ocean, an unprecedented climate would come within 200 years over the Indian Ocean, the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic and the South Atlantic, parts of the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Ross Sea, and parts of the Arctic Sea. In the meantime, an unprecedented climate would come even after thousands of years over some other regions of ocean including the eastern tropical Pacific and the North Pacific middle latitudes where an internal variability is large. In summary, spatial pattern in timing of unprecedented climate are different for each continent. For the ocean, it is highly affected by large internal variability except for the high-latitude regions with a significant warming trend. As such, a timing of an unprecedented climate would not be uniform over the globe but considerably different by region. Our results suggest that it is necessary to consider an internal variability as well as a regional warming rate when planning a climate change mitigation and adaption policy.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.375-387
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• 2013

Accuracy assessment of tide models in polar ocean has to be performed to accurately analyze tidal response of glaciers by using Double-Differential Interferometric SAR (DDInSAR) technique. In this study, we used 120 DDInSAR images generated from 16 one-day tandem COSMO-SkyMed DInSAR pairs obtained for 2 years and in situ tide height for 11 days measured by a pressure type wave recorder to assess the accuracy of tide models such as TPXO7.1, FES2004, CATS2008a and Ross_Inv in Terra Nova Bay, East Antarctica. Firstly, we compared the double-differential tide height (${\Delta}\dot{T}$) for Campbell Glacier Tongue extracted from the DDInSAR images with that predicted by the tide models. Tide height (T) from in situ measurement was compared to that of the tide models. We also compared 24-hours difference of tide height ($\dot{T}$) from in situ tide height with that from the tide models. The root mean square error (RMSE) of ${\Delta}\dot{T}$, T and $\dot{T}$ decreased after the inverse barometer effect (IBE)-correction of the tide models, from which we confirmed that the IBE of tide models should be corrected requisitely. The RMSE of $\dot{T}$ and ${\Delta}\dot{T}$ were smaller than that of T. This was because $\dot{T}$ is the difference of tide height during temporal baseline of the DInSAR pairs (24 hours), in which the errors from mean sea level of the tide models and in situ tide, and the tide constituents of $S_2$, $K_2$, $K_1$ and $P_1$ used in the tide models were canceled. This confirmed that $\dot{T}$ and ${\Delta}\dot{T}$ predicted by the IBE-corrected tide models can be used in DDInSAR technique. It was difficult to select an optimum tide model for DDInSAR in Terra Nova Bay by using in situ tide height measured in a short period. However, we could confirm that Ross_Inv is the optimum tide model as it showed the smallest RMSE of 4.1 cm by accuracy assessment using the DDInSAR images.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.545-552
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• 2018

Grounding line is used as evidence of the mass balance showing the vulnerability of Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves. In this research, we utilized a high resolution digital elevation model of glacier surface derived by recently launched satellites to estimate the position of grounding line of Campbell Glacier in East Antarctica. TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X data in single-pass interferometry mode were acquired on June 21, 2013 and September 10, 2016 and CryoSat-2 radar altimeter data were acquired within 15 days from the acquisition date of TanDEM-X. The datasets were combined to generate a high resolution digital elevation model which was used to estimate the grounding line position. During the 3 years of observation, there weren't any significant changes in grounding line position. Since the average density of ice used in estimating grounding line is not accurately known, the variations of the grounding line was analyzed with respect to the density of ice. There was a spatial difference from the grounding line estimated by DDInSAR whereas the estimated grounding line using the characteristics of the surface of the optical satellite images agreed well when the ice column density was about $880kg/m^3$. Although the reliability of the results depends on the vertical accuracy of the bathymetry in this study, the hydrostatic ice thickness has greater influence on the grounding line estimation.