SEASONAL VARIATIONS OF CLIMATOLOGICALLY IMPORTANT TRACE GASES IN KING SEJONG STATION, ANTARCTICA

Abstract

Warming trend of the global climate is unquestionable and is likely to be continued for the 21st century. It is no doubt that emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by human activities is a single predominant factor leading to the climate change occurring at the moment. Investigation of their temporal variation in the polar region of the southern hemisphere gives us opportunity to look for the processes that drive temporal variation in the least influence of human activities. The Korean Antarctic station, King Sejong, is located in King George Islands, off the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsular. Air masses from the southern ocean prevail over the station round the year with occasional invasion from Antarctic continent. We began analyzing trace gases in the air over the station in 2006. The trace gases includes CO2, N2O, CH4, SF6, CO, volatile organic compounds, and halogenated compounds, which are not only important in global climate change, but also play important role in atmospheric chemistry in regional and global bases. In 2008 we will begin monitoring O3 and CO in situ at a time resolution of seconds and minutes. In the presentation we will discuss the first results from the observation.