Radioactivity in Europe, no public risk: IAEA (Rise of radioactive levels in European countries)

I just found this article today:

The UN atomic agency said Friday "very low levels" of radioactive iodine-131 had been detected in the air in the Czech Republic and in other countries, but presented no risk to human health. The Czech nuclear safety office said that the source of the contamination was "most probably" outside the Czech Republic, and that its information suggested the cause was not an accident at an atomic power plant.

Link to full story

Makes one wonder doesn't it? I read refusal to tell between the lines of this article (and others on the web) about what really caused this. And maybe the IAEA themselves have no idea at this time. Has a country outside of Europe done a nuketest? Iran maybe? Just curious... I hope we can inform each other in this thread about follow ups on this news...

Aren't they able to match the spectral signature of the radioactive isotope and find out where it came from?

Also, using weather data & models, they should be able to backtrack where the prevailing winds have been coming from. Knowing that I-131's half life is only 8 days, the weather model narrows down significantly where the source could possibly be.

All they have to do is compare possible source locations to various model results using weather data records and BAM, there's your source.

reply to post by Cryptonomicon

I was thinking the exact same thing! Sadly I'm not a weather genius. Perhaps a member of this forum is a wizkid in this sort of things? Anyone?

Ok I've been czeching out the weather in Czechia and most currents are eastern. It points directly to the Caspian sea. A sea that also borders Iran in the South... I'm aware being very speculative about this but it's still striking isn't it? This is starting to bother me...

There's already a thread started about this earlier today. I did a search before posting but didn't found this one. Sorry mods, please close.