![]() In addition, the natural distribution of stable cesium ( 133Cs), rubidium ( 85Rb), and potassium ( 39K) concentrations was analyzed to determine the characteristics of 137Cs distribution. About 25 percent of the radioactivity initially released will travel to the Indian Ocean and South Pacific over two to three decades after the Fukushima disaster, the model showed.To understand the dynamics of accident-derived radioactive cesium ( 137Cs) in stem wood that had a substantial amount of heartwood at the time of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the radial and vertical distributions of 137Cs activity concentration in stem wood of Japanese cedar ( Cryptomeria japonica), cypress ( Chamaecyparis obtusa), and larch ( Larix kaempferi) were investigated. ![]() (The water from the current power plant leak would be expected to take a similar long-term path to the initial plume released, Rossi said.)īut the plume will eventually begin to escape the North Pacific gyre in an even more diluted form. ![]() Instead, the majority of the cesium-137 will remain in the North Pacific gyre - a region of ocean that circulates slowly clockwise and has trapped debris in its center to form the “ Great Pacific Garbage Patch” - and continue to be diluted for approximately a decade following the initial Fukushima release in 2011. That slower, lesser impact comes from Pacific currents taking part of the radioactive plume down below the ocean surface on a slower journey toward the Californian coast, Rossi explained.Ī large proportion of the radioactive plume from the initial Fukushima release won't even reach U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s limits for drinking water.)īy comparison, California’s coast may receive just 10 to 20 becquerels per cubic meter from 2016 to 2025. and Canadian coastal waters north of Oregon between 20. About 10 to 30 becquerels (units of radioactivity representing decay per second) per cubic meter of cesium-137 could reach U.S. ![]() coastline to about 180 miles (300 kilometers) offshore. The team focused on predicting the path of the radioactivity until it reached the continental shelf waters stretching from the U.S. Rossi worked with former colleagues at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia to simulate the spread of Fukushima’s radioactivity in the oceans - a study detailed in the October issue of the journal Deep-Sea Research Part 1. The release of cesium-137 from Fukushima in Japan’s more turbulent eastern currents means the radioactive material is diluted to the point of posing little threat to humans by the time it leaves Japan’s coastal waters. coastal waters is indicated by a black line, with a black box enclosing Hawaii. This computer projection shows the estimated extent of the Fukushima spill's plume of radioactive water in 2014. The radioactive plume has three different sources: radioactive particles falling out from the atmosphere into the ocean, contaminated water directly released from the plant, and water that became contaminated by leaching radioactive particles from tainted soil. West Coast within just days of the disaster back in 2011. By comparison, atmospheric radiation from the Fukushima plant began reaching the U.S. “The environmental impact could have been worse if the contaminated water would have been released in another oceanic environment in which the circulation was less energetic and turbulent,” said Vincent Rossi, an oceanographer and postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems in Spain.įukushima’s radioactive water release has taken its time journeying across the Pacific.
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