Influence of the meteorological input on the atmospheric transport modelling with FLEXPART of radionuclides from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

In the present paper the role of precipitation as FLEXPART model input is investigated for one possible release scenario of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Precipitation data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), the NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the Japan Meteorological Agency's (JMA) mesoscale analysis and a JMA radar-rain gauge precipitation analysis product were utilized. The accident of Fukushima in March 2011 and the following observations enable us to assess the impact of these precipitation products at least for this single case. As expected the differences in the statistical scores are visible but not large. Increasing the ECMWF resolution of all the fields from 0.5° to 0.2° rises the correlation from 0.71 to 0.80 and an overall rank from 3.38 to 3.44. Substituting ECMWF precipitation, while the rest of the variables remains unmodified, by the JMA mesoscale precipitation analysis and the JMA radar gauge precipitation data yield the best results on a regional scale, specially when a new and more robust wet deposition scheme is introduced. The best results are obtained with a combination of ECMWF 0.2° data with precipitation from JMA mesoscale analyses and the modified wet deposition with a correlation of 0.83 and an overall rank of 3.58. NCEP-based results with the same source term are generally poorer, giving correlations around 0.66, and comparatively large negative biases and an overall rank of 3.05 that worsens when regional precipitation data is introduced.

Radioxenon detections in the CTBT international monitoring system likely related to the announced nuclear test in North Korea on February 12, 2013.

Observations made in April 2013 of the radioxenon isotopes (133)Xe and (131m)Xe at measurement stations in Japan and Russia, belonging to the International Monitoring System for verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, are unique with respect to the measurement history of these stations. Comparison of measured data with calculated isotopic ratios as well as analysis using atmospheric transport modeling indicate that it is likely that the xenon measured was created in the underground nuclear test conducted by North Korea on February 12, 2013, and released 7-8 weeks later. More than one release is required to explain all observations. The (131m)Xe source terms for each release were calculated to 0.7 TBq, corresponding to about 1-10% of the total xenon inventory for a 10 kt explosion, depending on fractionation and release scenario. The observed ratios could not be used to obtain any information regarding the fissile material that was used in the test.

The influence of canadian forest fires on pollutant concentrations in the united states

High carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations from uncertain origins occurred episodically in the southeastern United States during the summer of 1995. We show that these episodes were caused by large forest fires in Canada. Over a period of 2 weeks, these natural emissions increased CO concentrations in the southeastern United States as well as along the eastern seaboard, a region with one of the world's highest rates of anthropogenic emissions. Within the forest fire plumes, there were also high concentrations of ozone, volatile organic compounds, and aerosols. These results suggest that the impact of boreal forest fire emissions on air quality in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, where anthropogenic pollutant sources have been considered predominant, needs to be reevaluated.