Change of people’s consciousness for sea ice through the Symposium at Mombetsu as a lecture in the service education course by UArctic at Nuuk, Greenland

The Tenth Symposium on Polar Science/Ordinary sessions: [OM] Polar Meteorology and Glaciology, Wed. 4 Dec. / Entrance Hall (1st floor) , National Institute of Polar Researc

Debt Overhang and Lack of Lender's Commitment

The debt overhang of sovereigns or firms is modeled in the recent literature as a constrained efficient outcome of dynamic debt contracts under the lack of the borrower's commitment, where debt relief is not Pareto-improving. The early literature observes another type of debt overhang where the borrower is discouraged from expending effort, anticipating the lender to take all output ex post. We show that this inefficiency is due to the lack of the lender's commitment and debt relief is Pareto-improving. Nevertheless, debt overhang may persist, as frictional bargaining over debt relief can take a long time

Is the Distance to Default a Good Measure in Predicting Bank Failures? Case Studies

This paper examines the movements of the Distance to Default (DD), a market-based measure of corporate default risk, of eight failed Japanese banks in order to evaluate the predictive power of the DD measure for bank failures. The DD became smaller in anticipation of failure in many cases. The DD spread, defined as the DD of a failed bank minus the DD of sound banks, was also a useful indicator for deterioration of a failed bank’s health. For some banks, neither the DD nor the DD spread predicted the failures. However, those results were partly due to lack of transparency in financial statements and disclosed information.

Features of ice sheet flow in East Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica

The Japanese Antarctic Research Expeditions(JAREs) have done glaciological studies on ice sheet dynamics and surface mass balance in East Dronning Maud Land, mainly around the Shirase Glacier drainage basin, during more than 30 years. The surface mass balance, obtained mainly by the snow stake method, was more than 250mm/a in the coastal region, less than 50mm/a in the inland region higher than 3500m in altitude, and about 100mm/a on average in the five drainage basins in East Dronning Maud Land. The ice flow velocity was observed around East Dronning Maud Land in three observation periods: on a route transversal to the Shirase Glacier flow in 1969 to 1974, along a route longitudinal to Shirase Glacier and a transversal route from Mizuho Station(70°42\u27S , 44°17\u27E , 2250m a.s.l.) to the Sr Rondane Mountains area in 1982 to 1987, and along a route from S16(69°02\u27S , 40°03\u27E , 554m a.s.l.) near the coast to Dome Fuji Station(77°19\u27S , 39°42\u27E , 3810m a.s.l.) in 1992 to 1995. Assuming steady ice flow, the balance velocity is calculated by integrating the surface mass balance in the upstream area from a specific point to the flow origin between adjacent stream lines. From the relation between balance velocity and basal shear stress, the basal sliding area was specified

Meteorological characteristics of Antarctic inland station, Dome Fuji (scientific paper)

Surface meteorological observations were carried out during 1995 and 1997, and extended atmospheric science observations were carried out in 1997 as a sub program of "Atmospheric Circulation and Material Cycle in the Antarctic (1997-2001)" at Dome Fuji Station (77°19\u27S, 39°42\u27E) where deep ice core drilling was done. The annual mean surface air temperature was -54.4°C with the lowest record of -79.7°C. The mean wind speed was 5.8 m/s with no clear prevailing wind direction. From aerological soundings, temperature profiles are described; they are characterized by a strong surface inversion such as 25°C, on a normal winter day. Abrupt warming occurred several times a year; the largest showed 40 degree temperature increase within two days between 17 and 19 July 1997. The event was associated with the intrusion of an anticyclone, "a blocking high", and many drastic phenomena such as large accumulation of snow followed this event

Ice thikness measurement on glaciers in Suntar Khayata, Eastern Siberia (A preliminary result)

第3回極域科学シンポジウム/特別セッション「これからの北極研究」11月28日（水） 国立極地研究所 2階大会議

Experimental results on the formation of hard compacted snow in Rikubetsu in northern Japan: A first step toward the construction of a compacted-snow runway on the Antarctic ice sheet

This paper describes the experimental methods and results on the formation of hard compacted snow in Rikubetsu in northern Japan during the winter of 1999. This basic research was the first step towards the construction of a compacted-snow runway on the Antarctic ice sheet. In Rikubetsu, we constructed three test fields(20m in length, 7m in width, and 0.4-1.0m in thickness) on compacted basal snow(approximately 0.05m in thickness). First, 0.1-0.35-m-thick layers of snow were deposited on the basal snow of the fields using a rotary snowplow. Next, the surface snow was smoothed using an excavator. Finally, the snow layers were compacted four times using a bulldozer. This entire process was repeated three to four times in order to construct 0.4-1.0-m-thick test fields. The ram hardness, snow density, and snow structure of these fields were investigated. A comparison with the criteria established by a U.S. scientist for a large aircraft-such as the C-130(Abele, 1990)-revealed that if snow in the form of three 0.2-0.25-m-thick layers is compacted four times by a bulldozer, it is sufficiently hard to serve as a runway at H68(69°11\u279″S, 41°03\u2734″E, 1204m a.s.l.) for a wheeled C-130. The Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition plans to conduct a feasibility study on the construction of the hard com-pacted-snow runway at this location