Wet and dry deposition of Chernobyl releases

Clark, Mara; Smith, F. B.

doi:10.1038/332245a0

Cited by 163 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…These results indicate that wet deposition plays an important role in the formation of wide and heterogeneous high dose rate zones. It corresponds to the prior observational study on the Chernobyl nuclear accident considering that the geographic pattern of deposited 137 Cs was closely related to that of rainfall [40].…”

Section: Detailed Analysis On the Local Atmospheric Dispersion Processsupporting

confidence: 73%

Source Term Estimation of 131I and 137Cs Discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Atmosphere

Nagai

Katata

Terada

et al. 2013

Radiation Monitoring and Dose Estimation of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

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It is urgent to assess the radiological dose to the public resulting from the month-long discharge of radioactive materials into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in Japan in March 2011. To do this task, computer simulations on the dispersion of radioactive materials in the environment are useful. However, the source term essential to computer simulations was not available. Thus, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been trying to estimate the source term of iodine and cesium discharged to the atmosphere. As the first step, the source term was preliminary estimated by coupling environmental monitoring data with atmospheric dispersion simulations. The release rates and total amounts of 131 I and 137 Cs discharged into the atmosphere were estimated for the period from 12 March to 5 April, 2011. Then, detailed analysis on the local atmospheric dispersion around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was carried out, revealing the formation process of high dose rate zones in a northwest direction from the plant. With this and further analyses for the early phase of the accident, the release rates and total amounts of 131 I and 137 Cs discharged into the atmosphere were reestimated for the period from 12 to 15 March 2011. Finally, the validity of the revised source term was examined by comparing daily and monthly surface deposition (fallout) over land in eastern Japan between measurements and outputs from the regional-scale atmospheric dispersion simulation.

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Section: Detailed Analysis On the Local Atmospheric Dispersion Processsupporting

confidence: 73%

Source Term Estimation of 131I and 137Cs Discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Atmosphere

Nagai

Katata

Terada

et al. 2013

Radiation Monitoring and Dose Estimation of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

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“…Distinct local patterns of enhancement were formed which reflected air mass trajectories and the incidence of precipitation at the time that the Chernobyl atmospheric plume passed overhead (Clark and Smith, 1988). Our interpretation of the features observed lies within the framework of existing models of the interception of the Chernobyl plume of April-May 1986 by a series of discrete rainfall events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Smith and Clark (1989) provide a detailed description and analysis of the atmospheric debris (the Chernobyl plume) that crossed Britain a week after it was emitted and was repeatedly intercepted by rainfall events that resulted in selective wet-deposition. The majority of wet deposition occurred over two days (02 to 04 May 1986) and Clark and Smith (1988) provide maps of the rainfall that intercepted the plume and thus an estimate of total deposition that resulted from atmospheric washout. Our data compare favourably with these interpretations.…”

Section: The 137mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The colour range is from 0 to 4 kBq m -2 and the higher levels found in SW Scotland together with a prominent NNW-SSE band on the high ground in east of the area can be noted. (Clark and Smith, 1988). Smith and Clark (1989) provide a detailed description and analysis of the atmospheric debris (the Chernobyl plume) that crossed Britain a week after it was emitted and was repeatedly intercepted by rainfall events that resulted in selective wet-deposition.…”

Section: The 137mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

High Resolution Observations of 137Cs in Northern Britain and Ireland from Airborne Radiometric Data

Scheib¹,

Beamish²

2009

Near Surface 2009 - 15th EAGE European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics

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SUMMARYThis study presents high-resolution airborne geophysical estimates of the distribution of 137Cs across three areas of northern Britain and Ireland. The radiometric spectra were acquired as part of a program of modern resource and environmental surveying. The largest survey area considered covers the whole of Northern Ireland. All three data sets display some clustering on high ground together with regional scale banding features. The two main banding directions are approximately NNW-SSE and NW-SE. Our interpretation of the regional scale features is in relation to existing knowledge of the wet deposition model of the Chernobyl release of 1986. The airborne estimates, obtained at 200 m flight line intervals, add significant detail in relation to the meteorological and atmospheric interactions involved in the fallout from the Chernobyl plume over Western Europe.

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“…deposition of radionuclides (Andronopoulos and Bartzis, 2010;de Sampaio et al, 2008;Lauritzen et al, 2007;Lutman et al, 2004;Terada and Chino, 2008;Leelossy et al, 2011). For this particular accident at Fukushima, the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model (Morino et al, 2011), the Lagrangian transport models HYSPLIT and FLEXPART with meteorological conditions provided by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (Srinivas et al, 2012), and the WRF-Chem tracer model which directly couples the simulation of the chemistry and meteorology (Huh et al, 2012(Huh et al, , 2013) have been used.…”

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Huang

et al. 2014

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. The atmospheric transport and ground deposition of radioactive isotopes 131 I and 137 Cs during and after the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident (March 2011) are investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model. The aim is to assess the skill of WRF in simulating these processes and the sensitivity of the model's performance to various parameterizations of unresolved physics. The WRF-Chem model is first upgraded by implementing a radioactive decay term into the advection-diffusion solver and adding three parameterizations for dry deposition and two parameterizations for wet deposition. Different microphysics and horizontal turbulent diffusion schemes are then tested for their ability to reproduce observed meteorological conditions. Subsequently, the influence of emission characteristics (including the emission rate, the gas partitioning of 131 I and the size distribution of 137 Cs) on the simulated transport and deposition is examined. The results show that the model can predict the wind fields and rainfall realistically and that the ground deposition of the radionuclides can also be captured reasonably well. The modeled precipitation is largely influenced by the microphysics schemes, while the influence of the horizontal diffusion schemes on the wind fields is subtle. However, the ground deposition of radionuclides is sensitive to both horizontal diffusion schemes and microphysical schemes. Wet deposition dominated over dry deposition at most of the observation stations, but not at all locations in the simulated domain. To assess the sensitivity of the total daily deposition to all of the model physics and inputs, the averaged absolute value of the difference (AAD) is proposed. Based on AAD, the total deposition is mainly influenced by the emission rate for both 131 I and 137 Cs; while it is not sensitive to the dry deposition parameterizations since the dry deposition is just a minor fraction of the total deposition. Moreover, for 131 I, the deposition is moderately sensitive (AAD between 10 and 40 % between different runs) to the microphysics schemes, the horizontal diffusion schemes, gas-partitioning and wet deposition parameterizations. For 137 Cs, the deposition is very sensitive (AAD exceeding 40 % between different runs) to the microphysics schemes and wet deposition parameterizations, but moderately sensitive to the horizontal diffusion schemes and the size distribution.

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Wet and dry deposition of Chernobyl releases

Cited by 163 publications

References 7 publications

Source Term Estimation of 131I and 137Cs Discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Atmosphere

Source Term Estimation of 131I and 137Cs Discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Atmosphere

High Resolution Observations of 137Cs in Northern Britain and Ireland from Airborne Radiometric Data

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

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