• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_1
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• pp.1047-1056
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• 2022

Sea ice, frozen sea water, in the Artic is a primary indicator of global warming. Due to its importance to the climate system, shipping-route navigation, and fisheries, Arctic sea ice prediction has gained increased attention in various disciplines. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), motivated by a desire to develop more autonomous and efficient future predictions, have led to the development of new sea ice prediction models as alternatives to conventional numerical and statistical prediction models. This study aims to evaluate the performance of the two-stream convolutional long-and short-term memory (TS-ConvLSTM) AI model, which is designed for learning both global and local characteristics of the Arctic sea ice changes, for the minimum September Arctic sea ice from 2001 to 2021, and to show the possibility for an operational prediction system. Although the TS-ConvLSTM model generally increased the prediction performance as training data increased, predictability for the marginal ice zone, 5-50% concentration, showed a negative trend due to increasing first-year sea ice and warming. Additionally, a comparison of sea ice extent predicted by the TS-ConvLSTM with the median Sea Ice Outlooks (SIOs) submitted to the Sea Ice Prediction Network has been carried out. Unlike the TS-ConvLSTM, the median SIOs did not show notable improvements as time passed (i.e., the amount of training data increased). Although the TS-ConvLSTM model has shown the potential for the operational sea ice prediction system, learning more spatio-temporal patterns in the difficult-to-predict natural environment for the robust prediction system should be considered in future work.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.186-186
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• 2018

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2017.11a
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• pp.224-224
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• 2017

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.321-349
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• 2016

According to the recent observation by NOAA(US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), 2015 is the warmest year based on global average temperature since 1880. The air temperatures in the Arctic have been rising at almost twice the global average and the extent and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic have declined. And the warming process in the Arctic is accelerating rapidly. These impacts of drastic change in sea ice caused by climate change in the Arctic threaten the eco-system service and biodiversity in the Arctic. This study intends to estimate the economic value on changes in eco-system services and biodiversity of the Arctic caused by climate change. The result of the valuation indicates that the total benefit from improvement of ecosystem in the Arctic ranges from 318.6 billion won to 715.9 billion won per annum. Replication scenarios can be explored into two broad categories in future studies: scenarios in consideration of conflicts of different stakeholders and scenarios based on wider or narrower definition of biodiversity in the Arctic.

• Special Issue of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• 2013.12a
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• pp.66-72
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• 2013

The demand for an ice class ship is rising expected to rise according to the increase of energy consumption and the opening of arctic sea routes. Ice class ship should be designed to cope with the severe environmental conditions of arctic sea such as a high mechanical impact and abrasion damage, caused by pack ice, ice bergs and low temperature. The ice class ship hulls are coated with an anti-abrasion and low friction coating such as a solvent free epoxy or high solid-volume epoxy. These coatings require two-component heating pump and a high grade surface preparation. In this study, the coating performances for the arctic vessels, such as puncture absorbed energy, abrasive wear loss, friction coefficients and impact absorbed energy were evaluated. Based on this study, a proper coating performance specification for the arctic vessels was proposed and coating selection guideline in terms of coating performance and workability was also established.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.423-434
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• 2009

The Arctic environment is sensitive to change of sea-ice distribution. The increase and decrease of sea ice work to an index of globe warming progress. In order to predict the progress of hereafter earth global warming, continuous monitoring regarding a change of the sea ice area in the Arctic should be performed. The remote sensing based on an artificial satellite is most effective on the North Pole. The sea ice observation using a passive microwave sensor has been continued from 1970's. The determination of sea ice extent and ice type is one of the great successes of the passive microwave imagers. In this paper, to investigate the seasonal and inter-annual variation of sea-ice distribution we used here the sea ice data from July 2002 to May 2009 around the Arctic within $60^{\circ}N$ for the AMSR-E 12.5km sea-ice concentration, a passive microwave sensor. From an early analysis of these data, the arctic sea-ice extent has been steadily decreasing at a rate of about 3.1%, accounting for about $2{\times}10^5\;km^2$, which was calculated for the sea-ice cover reaching its minimum extent at the end of each summer. It is also revealed that this trend corresponds to a decline in the multi-year ice that is affected mainly by summer sea surface and air temperature increases. The extent of younger and thinner (first-year) ice decreased to the 2007 minimum, but rapidly recovered in 2008 and 2009 due to the dramatic loss in 2007. Seasonal variations of the sea-ice extent show significant year-to-year variation in the seasons of January-March in the Barents and Labrador seas and August-October in the region from the East Siberian and Chukchi seas to the North Pole. The spatial distribution of multi-year ice (7-year old) indicates that the perennial ice fraction has rapidly shrunk recently out of the East Siberian, Laptev, and Kara seas to the high region of the Arctic within the last seven years and the Northeast Passage could become open year-round in near future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.69-70
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• 2013

IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) reported that the arctic sea-ice extent has been decreased by 2.7% per decades since satellite observations in 1978. The decreased sea-ice extent has gained an international attention due to its economical benefits from the NSR (Northen Sea Route). The NRS - not a clearly defined single route, but a number of alternative routes across the top of Russiahas a 37 % reduction in sailing distance, comparing to the SSR (Southen Sea Route) passing thourgh the Suez Canal. Sailing days are consequently reduced from 30 days to 20 days. Also, it is estimated that the Northen Sea has 20 to 25% of world's oil resources and occupies 40% of the world's fishery production. As Republic of Korea was admitted as an observer to the Arctic Council on May 15, 2013, there has been increasing needs to explore new route in the Northen Sea. In this situation, Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology (KIOST) is preparing a plan for the development of Arctic-circle Ocean Environmental Information System to support the ice navigation and resource exploration in the Arctic. We will introduce a conceptual design of a satellite-based ice navigation supporting system for the northern sea route.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.1044-1048
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• 2015

Recently, the viability of the Northern Sea Route has been receiving a remarkable amount of attention. Owing to global warming, glaciers in the Arctic Ocean have been melting rapidly, which has opened up navigation routes for ships with commercial as well as research purposes. At present, vessels can be economically operated along the Northern Sea Route four months of the year. However, studies have shown that the economical operating time may increase to six months by 2020 and year-round by 2030. Even though the conditions of the Northern Sea Route are extreme, the main reason for its use is that the route is shorter than the existing route using the Suez Canal, which provides an economic benefit. In addition, 25% of the world's oil reserves and 30% of its natural gas are stored in the coastal areas of the East Siberian Arctic region. Many factors are leading to the expectation of commercial navigation using the Northern Sea Route in the near future. To satisfy future demand, the International Maritime Organization established the Polar Code in order to ensure navigation safety in polar waters; this is expected to enter into force on January 1, 2017. According to the code, a ship needs to reduce its speed and analyze the ice for safe operation before entering into it. It is necessary to enter an ice field at a right angle to break the ice safely and efficiently. This study examined the operation along the course for safe navigation of the passage under several conditions. The results will provide guidelines for traffic officers who will operate ships in the Arctic Ocean.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.219-227
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• 2017

Manganese (Mn) nodules in the Arctic Sea have been founded in the Kara Sea and Barents Sea, but mineral and chemical compositions have been rarely investigated. In this study, mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of Mn nodules obtained during the Arctic Expedition ARA07C in northern East Siberian Sea were identified, and then genesis of Mn nodules were estimated by using these characteristics. Main manganese oxide minerals constituting the manganese nodule were buserite, birnessite, and vernadite. The Mn nodules generally represent radiated and massive texture, and the layered texture was developed restrictively. The radiated texture, main feature of the manganese nodule in the East Siberian Sea, is mainly composed of cuspate-globular microstructure. Compared with the Mn nodules in Pacific and Indian Oceans, Mn nodules of the East Siberian Sea are abundant in Mn, but Fe is too scarce. There was no difference in the chemical composition and microstructures between outer and inner part of nodule. Therefore, nodules are most likely to have only one genesis during their growth, and all of nodules indicate the diagenetic in $Mn-Fe-(Cu+Ni+Co){\times}10$ ternary diagram. It is considered that the manganese nodules in the East Siberian Sea are characterized by high Mn contents because manganese contents in the Arctic Ocean were mainly resulted from river or coastal erosion and most of them are trapped in the Arctic Ocean.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.208-222
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• 2021

Managing with the presence of sea ice is the primary challenge in the operation of floating platforms in the Arctic region. It is widely accepted that offshore structures operating in Arctic conditions need station-keeping methods as well as ice management by icebreakers. Dynamic Positioning (DP) is one of the station-keeping methods that can provide mobility and flexibility in marine operations. The presence of sea ice generates complex external forces and moments acting on the vessel, which need to be counteracted by the DP system. In this paper, an icevaning control algorithm is proposed that enables Arctic offshore vessels to perform DP operations. The proposed icevaning control enables each vessel to be oriented toward the direction of the mean environmental force induced by ice drifting so as to improve the operational safety and reduce the overall thruster power consumption by having minimum external disturbances naturally. A mathematical model of an Arctic offshore vessel is summarized for the development of the new icevaning control algorithm. To determine the icevaning action of the Arctic offshore vessel without any measurements and estimation of ice conditions including ice drift, task and null space are defined in the vessel model, and the control law is formulated in the task space. A backstepping technique is utilized to handle the nonlinearity of the Arctic offshore vessel's dynamic model, and the Lyapunov stability theory is applied to guarantee the stability of the proposed icevaning control algorithm. Experiments are conducted in the ice tank of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.