1. Potential Source Apportionment and Meteorological Conditions Involved in Airborne 131I Detections in January/February 2017 in Europe
- Author
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J. Kövendiné Kónyi, Renata Kierepko, J. Bieringer, I. Sykora, Petr Rulík, R. Rusconi, Kurt Ungar, Laurent Pourcelot, W. Ringer, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, H. Wershofen, C. Gasco Leonarte, A. de Vismes-Ott, Zsolt Homoki, J. Tschiersch, Benjamin Zorko, M. Hýža, Georg Steinhauser, Olivier Masson, Tero Karhunen, Dragana Todorović, Pavel P. Povinec, B. Møller, Helmut W Fischer, E. Dalaka, G. Sáfrány, Jerzy W. Mietelski, K. Isajenko, Thomas Steinkopff, Helena Malá, Olivier Saunier, A. Dalheimer, Jelena Krneta Nikolić, Christian Katzlberger, T.W. Bowyer, M. Rajacic, M. Forte, K. Gorzkiewicz, and Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN)
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,business.industry ,chemistry.chemical_element ,General Chemistry ,010501 environmental sciences ,Particulates ,Nuclear power ,Uranium ,Orders of magnitude (volume) ,Atmospheric sciences ,01 natural sciences ,Atmosphere ,chemistry ,[SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics] ,13. Climate action ,Nuclear fission ,Environmental Chemistry ,Environmental science ,business ,Sludge ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Spontaneous fission - Abstract
International audience; Traces of particulate radioactive iodine (131I) were detected in the European atmosphere in January/February 2017. Concentrations of this nuclear fission product were very low, ranging 0.1 to 10 μBq m-3 except at one location in western Russia where they reached up to several mBq m-3. Detections have been reported continuously over an 8-week period by about 30 monitoring stations. We examine possible emission source apportionments and rank them considering their expected contribution in terms of orders of magnitude from typical routine releases: radiopharmaceutical production units > sewage sludge incinerators > nuclear power plants > spontaneous fission of uranium in soil. Inverse modeling simulations indicate that the widespread detections of 131I resulted from the combination of multiple source releases. Among them, those from radiopharmaceutical production units remain the most likely. One of them is located in Western Russia and its estimated source term complies with authorized limits. Other existing sources related to 131I use (medical purposes or sewage sludge incineration) can explain detections on a rather local scale. As an enhancing factor, the prevailing wintertime meteorological situations marked by strong temperature inversions led to poor dispersion conditions that resulted in higher concentrations exceeding usual detection limits in use within the informal Ring of Five (Ro5) monitoring network. © 2018 American Chemical Society.
- Published
- 2018
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