Updated information

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2011-03-23 13:18

Thank you for your great job. Why don't you post the readings from days that are closer to today's date. If today is 23rd, why I can only view results from the 20th, not the 22nd.

‹ March 18th plume Plutonium and uranium particles ›

your project

Submitted by old jim hardy (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 15:52.

Thank you !

I am retired from nuclear power industry, thirty years in a plant.

Have followed your site since it was announced.

I appreciate the rigor of your measurements and your unambiguous posting of actual numbers. For me as a practical plant guy the correction for 1/2 life is unnecessary as i'm just trending, but it instills absolute confidence in you folks.
Keep up the good work. it helps spread calm instead of rumor.

And THANKS!!!

old jim

Thank you

Submitted by Judith (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 14:14.

Thank you for doing this. I am a bit disturbed that Caltech did not even have the curiosity to do something like this for themselves or for the safety of citizens, since 9/11 has proven that we cannot trust the EPA's testing and their claims that "everything is normal". I've known about the Asian (Toxic) Dust Cloud from China for years, therefore I KNOW at least some radiation must be arriving here... and UC Berkeley I trust.

The update from 3/21 reads

Submitted by Very Concerned (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 14:04.

The update from 3/21 reads in part:

"Slight increase in activities are noted which may be due to many reasons from actual increase from Japan to differing atmospheric chemistry effects."

What does "atmospheric chemistry effects" mean? (With due respect, the only thing I could come up with was that someone farted in your samples, which is is ridiculous!)

Can you guys be more clear in the future?

Thanks,
Very Concerned

Sorry for the confusion.

Submitted by dchivers on Wed, 2011-03-23 15:14.

Sorry for the confusion. Atmospheric chemistry really means that the particles that we are looking for attach to other molecules/particles, etc., and this can effect the efficiency of collecting these particles. The rain "collects" particles and we use the rain to measure, however, the efficiency of the rain collecting these particles and transporting down to the ground is effected by parameters such as the altitude of the rain, temperature, barometric pressure, etc.

It is actually very complex.

Hope that helps.

It does help, actually.

Submitted by Very Concerned (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 15:35.

It does help, actually. Thank you very much!

There are a couple of

Submitted by dchivers on Wed, 2011-03-23 13:53.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the collection time is 12 or 24 hours as it is and our count times could be up to 12 hours. Also, for our rain measurements, we are doing a 5L to 1L low temperature reduction to increase sensitivity. This tends to delay the counting measurement another 6-12 hours.

We have shifted our air sampling to a larger volume system and a new detector. We have been calibrating this setup for the past couple of days and we will get these results up hopefully today.