NILU stopped forecast too!!!

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2011-05-11 14:38

Berkeley Radiological Air and Water Monitoring Forum

http://transport.nilu.no/products/fukushima/

Fukushima
last modified 2011-05-11 21:12

Thank you for your interest in the FLEXPART products for Fukushima. The Forecast system is no longer running.

Wow! Global solidarity in blackout!

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weather fallout maps

Submitted by David (not verified) on Thu, 2011-09-22 20:49.

Here, try this one... I-131 and Cs-137: Surface and 850mb and total accumulation; 10 day prediciton
http://www.senes.ca/japan/forecasts.html

“Thank you for your

Submitted by angusmerlin (not verified) on Wed, 2011-05-11 21:37.

“Thank you for your interest in the FLEXPART products for Fukushima. The Forecast system is no longer running.”

Parting words of NILU Fukushima radiation plume weather forecasts.
Our last bastion.....

Wonderful! Sweet! Now none of us will have any idea of any corrective actions to take should the need arise– because we will all be in the dark, if the need does arise. Keep the public ignorant, so they won’t panic mentality. Yes, the average person no longer wants to know about Fukushima radiation threats. They are scared! They don’t want to talk about radiation. Anyway it is no longer news. And, if you don’t know, you will be safe. Think I will put my head in a hole, even if the sky does rain down upon me.

P.S. The EnvirReporter.com Radiation Station in Santa Monica, CA has pledged to continue live date posting of radiation levels for the Los Angeles basin area.

Guess it is better to light one little match, than to curse the darkness.

And, thank you BRAUM!!!

Submitted by angusmerlin (not verified) on Wed, 2011-05-11 21:57.

And, thank you BRAUM!!!

I have dug up the SPEEDI

Submitted by Lalla (not verified) on Wed, 2011-05-11 21:30.

I have dug up the SPEEDI projected radiation spread according to weather pattern. Maybe it will be helpful info to some:
http://www.nsc.go.jp/NSCenglish/geje/mext/speedi_1.html

It's simply not news anymore

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-05-11 20:53.

While it's easy to scream "blackout!!!", this crisis is being handled
pretty much the same as any other.

The organizations providing data (like NILU, EURAD, EPA, universities,
public health agencies, etc.) will continue providing data until:

1. There is no longer a perceived threat.
2. There is no research value.
3. There is no budget left.

I think we are seeing all 3 coming into play for Fukushima. We need to
understand that these organizations do not exist to hold our hands and
comfort us indefinitely. They exists mainly for #'s 1 and 2 above.

The BRAWM team has said they will continue their work because they want
to track the isotopes through the environment. We should expect some of
their analysis to be dropped because there really will be no research
value at some point. Air, rain, creek and tap water monitoring may not
yield much info once they have dropped below a certain level and there
is no source of further contamination. We are already seeing the air
reporting slow down considerably. Analysis of some areas of the food
chain could have some continued value. Like produce uptake from soil,
continued cattle (milk and beef) contamination from feed harvested during
the fallout period and I'm sure more areas.

As for the mainstream media, they will cover it until they determine the
story is old and there's something else that will catch reader/viewer
attention and sell product. Like a military action, tornados, political
scandals, airline crashes, a terrorist being taken out or just about
anything else that is "the next thing". Forget about the Fukushima crisis.
As far as the media is concerned, if you just started tuning in today, you
wouldn't even know there was an earthquake or tsunami in Japan. And if
they do mention it, don't blink. You'll miss it. There just isn't anything
new to talk about ***that will get enough people to tune in***. The media
is NOT about keeping us informed. It's about selling product/making money.

Compared with TMI or Chernobyl, the reporting of Fukushima has bordered
on another version of TMI (Too Much Information). We knew what happened
when it happened, where the plume was going, when it would get to the US,
what isotopes (at least some) and what the levels were. In contrast, the
public was completely ignorant about the impact of Chernobyl. There was no
internet. So, we were completely dependent on the media. Yes, the same
"sell product" media. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I can honestly say
that I got educated about Chernobyl because of Fukushima......

radiation

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-09-22 14:38.

Continental U.S. is receiving massive doses of radiation. infant mortanlity since fukushima shows a statistically significant uptick of 35% according to U.S. dept of health figures.

Why? The Mark I BWR reactor was defective when it was sold to Japan. GE knew it was defectrve. Three engineers on the design team quit in protest, one of them stated: the Mark I BWR is ten pounds of energy in a ten-pound sack.

The nuclear industry doesn't want you to know that radiation iscontaminating the northern hemisphere and will be contaminating it for years to come.

Perhaps THIS is why they

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 07:04.

Perhaps THIS is why they stopped?
All from May 11, 2011:

From source:
http://zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/fpinteractive/plots/?C=M;O=D

WHAT. THE. ????

ZARDOZ

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 18:24.

wiZARDofOZ both interesting stories. symbolic of modern times.

NILU Web Site

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 10:37.

On the offical NILU web site, I searched for "Japan", "Fukushima", "radiation", "reactor", and "iodine". It returned nothing about the Fukushima crisis. So, what is this zardoz.nilu.no site? Is it a skunk works operation? It doesn't look like NILU (translated "Norwegian Institute for Air Research") is doing anything officially. I think it's important to know exactly who is doing these simulations.

A few things

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 09:41.

I'll admit that I really don't know what those *simulations* are showing me. And we do need to understand that they are simulations. Not actual measurements. But, I'm happy to plead ignorance on the simulations and be educated.

A few observations/comments:

1. If it's "plumes" that they are showing, it's strange that they are measuring air in square meters. Everyone else uses either cubic meter or liter. Or in really contaminated areas, cubic centimenters. Cubic meters is used to measure soil/surface contamination

2. I *think* the simuations are showing I-131 concentrations at 200 Bq/M2 across all of north US. Assuming they are air concentrations, and that they actually mean cubic meters, that is WAY higher than anything measured by anyone in the US. The Calif Dept. of Public Health reported the highest measurement of I-131 I've seen. And that was 1.5 pCi/M3 (5.56E-5 Bq/L) in San Luis Obispo back on 3/20/2011. The most recent BRAWM measurement was 4.0e-09 Bq/L Or 0.000004 Bq/M3 (50 million times less than the simulation).
The highest BRAWM measurement was 4.3e-06 Bq/L or 0.004 Bq/M3.

http://zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/fpinteractive/plots/tracer_h_1990.gif

The link below shows I-131 levels at 400 Bq/M2 hitting the pacific north west:

http://zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/fpinteractive/plots/tracer_h_2011.gif

3. The dates are kind of weird in the above link. It says "Simulation start 20110509. 30000 Actual time 20110508. 0". So, it started after the actual time? Were they back simulating?

And the following link for "Ash" has 2010 dates:

http://zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/fpinteractive/plots/tracer_h_2007.gif

Honestly, I don't know what to take away from these simulations.

Correction

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 11:21.

*square* meters is used to measure soil/surface contamination. NOT cubic meters.

Total column

Submitted by bandstra on Thu, 2011-05-12 10:46.

The NILU units of Bq/m^2 are correct, but they are for "total column," not "surface concentration" which is what we measure (in Bq/m^3). Total column is how much radioactivity is over an area of 1 m^2 from sea level to the top of the atmosphere. They're not really comparable unless you know the concentration profile of the isotope with altitude.

Also, we've made numerous comments on interpreting the NILU simulations in particular, such as "A few disclaimers" and "A note on interpreting EURAD and NILU plume forecasts".

Mark [BRAWM Team Member]

Thanks, Mark

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 11:19.

For accuracy sake, if this is for air, the BRAWM team has actually measured air concentrations in Bq/L :-) Just about everyone else is reporting pCi/M^3 or Bq/M^3.

This has probably been covered already, but I do have a question about how to translate BRAWM's topsoil measurements. The BRAWM team has used Bq/kg for topsoil. What does that translate into as far as Bq/M^2? Or does it at all?

Soil 1m x 1m x 1cm deep is

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 11:36.

Soil 1m x 1m x 1cm deep is about 14-16 kilograms. 1 cubic meter of soil is roughly 1,500 kilograms.

BRAWM Team's Last Topsoil

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 13:29.

If I have my math correct, the last and highest BRAWM team topsoil surface area results were as follows:

I-131: 21.15 Bq/M^2 (1.41 Bq/kg x 15kg) The highest BRAWM result was 186.3 Bq/M^2 on 4/6/2011.

Cs-134: 14.85 Bq/M^2 (0.99 x 15kg) The highest BRAWM result was 15.6 Bq/M^2.

Cs-137: 18.15 Bq/M^2 (1.21 x 15kg) The highest BRAWM result was 22.95 Bq/M^2.

To put this into a little historical perspective, you can compare this to what was observed after the Chernobyl disaster (link below).

***Need to be careful about the units used***

http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad7c.html

For example:

May 11 Portland Ground deposition 131I 9157 pCi/m2

The above Portland ground depostion for I-131 is 1.8 times the BRAWM team high. And 16 times the last BRAWM team measurement.

Thanks

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 12:19.

I can now corrolate the BRAWM numbers with others

Well, there was no internet,

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-05-11 22:48.

Well, there was no internet, that's true. But people were very very very concerned. They were making copies of maps stolen from government. They were washing walls of their buildings just in case, searching ways to send their kids in camps or relatives as far as they can. They were double checking food sources, but I have to say that apples from Mogilev for example did drive Geiger counter mad. (There was people who did not believe anything but their own eyes, usually it was uneducated old folks. They were exited about their unusually large crops, huge mushrooms, juicy apples, unbelievably high grasses and such.) But in general it was not about the news or "the Event", it was a new way to live. Nobody ever believed the government anyway, nobody questioned that "better be safe than sorry", but there was very limited options. It was very different set of mind. As to research: 1) expect maps to be very bizarre. My sister in law was a young scientist in Minsk University who performed tests on wood samples from Mogilev and around. The results varied from huge to nothing withing a very short distance. 2) expect changes visible changes in plants 3) expect regional plumage changes in birds. Probably most of that information now sits under a thick layer of a dust in some archives. But it was very different from US.

The US was ignorant about all of it

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 11:31.

Not only was the US ignorant about the impact of Chernobyl at home, it was equally ignorant about the impact on/concerns of the Eastern European people. And to be honest, I really wonder what percentage of the current US population is actually aware/concerned about this crisis. A lot of information is certainly available. But, a person needs to turn off American Idol and look for it.

You can't force them.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2011-05-12 12:57.

You can't force them. Besides many of them will get angry. Besides even the people who already acknowledge "the Event" over the time will go through all the stages of grief: Denial (this isn't happening to me!- maybe they were wrong), Anger (why is this happening to me? - because of the messengers), Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...), Depression (I don't care anymore - I can't afford to be perfect during many many years, so what's the use), Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes). It's very hard to avoid financial and emotional burn out and then a free fall.