Threats of radioactive xenon plums streaming over the U.S.
From your neighbor in Los Angeles:
Berkeley, your findings of reduced Iodine-131 and Cesium appear consistent with European weather monitoring patterns predicted for the United States. Japanese Pacific jet stream plumes, however, now are showing relatively large concentrations of Xenon cruising over the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States. Suspect increased Xenon concentrations are complements of the explosion at #3 Fukushima reactor, where plutonium evidently was projected high into the atmosphere. Is Berkeley able to monitor for Xenon fallout? How will concentrations of xenon affect air, water, and food... especially on our West Coast areas?
Reliability of nilu Fukushima plume tracking forecasts
CTBTO page states nilu/zamg forecasts are proven to be 95% accurate
http://www.ctbto.org/press-centre/highlights/2011/fukushima-related-meas...
"... The CTBTO can also assist in predicting the global dispersion of radioactive material by using its atmospheric transport modelling (ATM) tool which has been developed in cooperation with the WMO. This method allows for the calculation of the dispersion of a given radionuclide emission, using meteorological data. This calculation can be performed as back tracking in order to identify the area where a radionuclide may have been released, calculated from the station where it was observed. In the case of Fukushima, where the point of release was known, the CTBTO applied forward ATM to predict where radionuclides would travel in the future.
Although the emissions were initially based on estimates only, they proved to be 95% correct as the radionuclides reached the stations mostly within hours of the time predicted. With information made available later by the IAEA on the release level of radioactive substances at the Fukushima power plant – the so-called source term – the CTBTO has been able to quantify and refine its global dispersion predictions."
Why don't people read the
Why don't people read the disclaimer on the NILU website before looking at the simulations and their pretty colored plumes of fictional concentrations?
"Concentration plots for FLEXPART tracers are available. Wet and dry deposition removal processes are included. The source terms have NOT been validated."
"ATTENTION: These products are highly uncertain based on limited information for the source terms. Please use with caution and understand that the values are likely to change once we obtain more information on the overall nature of the accident. The products should be considered informational and only indicate 'worst case scenario' releases. From what we've learned recently, it seems releases of this magnitude have not yet occurred."
If releases of this magnitude have not yet occurred, and it's been more than one month since the explosions at Fukushima, air emissions for the last weeks have been a minimal fraction of the minimal fraction of a worse case scenario that is yet to happen.
If there's another explosion or they have to vent reactor 1 (and we are informed on time) THEN it would be the moment to check the wind direction, right now it's just fear for fear's sake.
Xenon and plume forecasts
Hi, these posts might have helpful information for you:
About the low risks posed by Xe-133
"A note on interpreting EURAD and NILU plume forecasts"
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Thanks for the info, Mark!
P.S., Mark, we may not always agree, but your efforts are highly, highly appreciated and enlightening. Thanks again for all your hard work, along with the rest of the BRAWN team.
Thanks, BRAWM!
Thanks to the rest of the BRAWM team, that is...
So much for spell check!
I just wrote up two huge reports for work.
My brain is fried! Please forgive spelling.
Thanks, BRAWM!
Thanks to the rest of the BRAWM team, that is...
So much for speech check!
Xenon effects over extended, prolonged periods of time
Mark, what you say about a one time exposure of Xenon to the human body makes sense. But, over prolonged 24 hour, day to day, month to month exposures, the cumulative effects of increased low level Xenon to the human body may be quite a different animal. Add to ongoing low levels of Xenon, increased ongoing low level combinations of other radionuclides. More recent epidemiological studies on the effects of both Chernobyl's and Three Mile Island's ongoing exposure of low level nuclear plumes to humans over extended periods of time have uncovered significant negative health effects such as cancer, among other major medical maladies. I wonder about the Xenon in this light. Unfortunately, it appears to take about 10 to 20 years for these effects to show up, and then only brought to light by epidemiological research. And, the Pacific West Coast (your San Francisco/Berkeley and my Los Angeles) is definitely in the path of Japan's Fukushima radioactive xenon plumes-- nuclear clouds, which additionally include cocktails of other radioactive particles) cruising over the North American Hemisphere, ultimately over the entire Northern Hemisphere.
Any epidemiologists out there to comment....
Agreed angusmerlin
There will be higher cancer rates, but it will likely be over the next 6 months to 30 years, unless future fallout incidences shorten the 30-year timeline further.
At least soon, unlike Chernobyl, more people will be aware of these facts through social media, and the intentional calculated failure of the North American Governments and their "News Media Lapdogs" to properly inform the public of all the known hazards and risks of this fallout.
Why not just move to the
Why not just move to the opposite hemisphere? Is the North so much better? I bet you can return in 5 years, having your cake and eating it too.
a little hard for the
a little hard for the average person - who has a job, kids, mortgage - to do. But thanks for the very sarcastic suggestion.