Impact of Environmental Backgrounds on Atmospheric Monitoring of Nuclear Explosions

Eslinger, Paul W.; Miley, H.S.; Johnson, Christine M.; Sarathi, Ramesh S.; Schrom, Brian T.

doi:10.1007/s00024-022-03134-5

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Because medical isotope productions are such an important background, scientific studies have been in progress recently to estimate their total impact [36,71] and to determine the isotopic composition [72] at the facility release stack. Background for aerosol signals is dominated by natural radioactivity coming from radon in the atmosphere, and leakage from civilian nuclear processes, some of which are significant backgrounds in a few regions [1].…”

Section: Background Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In the nuclear explosion monitoring context, what is an anomaly?

Miley,

Eslinger,

Bowyer

et al. 2024

J Radioanal Nucl Chem

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In the early years of nuclear explosion monitoring, experts used downwind detections with meaningful ratios of radioactive species to identify an explosion. Today’s reality is sparse networks of radionuclide monitoring stations looking for weak signals. Analysts need to discriminate between industrial background radioactivity and nuclear explosion signals, even using the detection of one isotope. Aerosol and xenon measurements potentially related to nuclear tests in 2006 and 2013 announced by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and from worldwide civilian background radioactivity are considered when defining radionuclide detection anomalies to objectively guide the use of limited analyst resources and reduce the possibility of not detecting nuclear explosions.

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Section: Background Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A summary [1] of the releases from underground nuclear tests in the United States [2] shows that xenon isotopes are the most likely isotopes to escape underground containment in an nuclear test explosion. In a general sense, noble gases, which include xenon, are the most likely to escape from containment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%