Study:Concentrated Fukushima radioactive plume staying on narrow path toward US, 40th parallel north

Surface pathway of radioactive plume of TEPCO Fukushima NPP1 released 134Cs and 137Cs

M. Aoyama1, M. Uematsu2, D. Tsumune3, and Y. Hamajima4
1Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan
2Atomosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan
3Environmental Science Research Laboratory, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Tokyo, Japan
4Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan

www.biogeosciences.net...

Full study here: www.biogeosciences.net...


Study: Concentrated Fukushima radioactive plume staying on narrow path toward U.S. — Moving with surface water along 40 N — Same latitude as Northern California (MAP)

Published: May 17th, 2013

[...] The main body of radioactive surface plume of which activity exceeded 10 Bq m−3 travelled along 40° N and reached the International Date Line on March 2012, one year after the accident. A distinct feature of the radioactive plume was that it stayed confined along 40° N when the plume reached the International Date Line. [...]

A distinct feature of the radioactive plume was that it stayed confined along 40 N when the plume reached the International Date Line, as stated in Sect. 3.2. The radioactive plume travelled 1800 km (from 160 E to 178 E) for 270 days (9 months) (Fig. 5); therefore, an average zonal speed (u) of the surface radioactive plume was calculated to be about 8 cm s−1 which was consistent with the speed of the reported surface current of 4–16 cm s−1 in the region (Maximenko et al., 2009). [...]

We can also assume that the Fukushima radioactive plume moved with surface water [...]

enenews.com... ornia-map

Originally posted by MariaLida
[...] The main body of radioactive surface plume of which activity exceeded 10 Bq m−3

So practically nothing at all then.
Good to hear.

So when it gets to the west coast of America the beaches will have to be closed for years? Centuries? Or my guess, not at all so as not to alarm the doomed, ah, I mean "oblivious" populace.

Is Japan Responsible for damages in an american court?

Originally posted by stirling
Is Japan Responsible for damages in an american court?

Is America responsible for the damages they have caused myriad other countries?

Can anyone explain what a "radioactive plume is" , how one would occur (why it is not constant), and what it's potential effects are (and how accurately any of this can be measured how/when the plume was detected and ended).

There are so many terms / information that are out there when dealing with something nuclear imo

I spoke to a Nuclear Tech for the guys that have lots of boats in the ocean there you can guess who that is. He said that there is not much we should worry about because if something did happen they would never let the smartest people a superpower has "chill" in the area. He was there literally scanning entire fields of grass just for tiny tiny tiny amounts of radioactive material. In his conclusion if you are worried about the damage from the disaster you might as well never see the sun again or eat a banana again because it will damage you more long term. Just saying from what he told me. We have learned a lot from what happened just like every other disaster. I was scared about the fall out too but the way he put it put me at ease and he seemed like a straight shooter.

Originally posted by marbles87
I spoke to a Nuclear Tech for the guys that have lots of boats in the ocean there you can guess who that is. He said that there is not much we should worry about because if something did happen they would never let the smartest people a superpower has "chill" in the area. He was there literally scanning entire fields of grass just for tiny tiny tiny amounts of radioactive material. In his conclusion if you are worried about the damage from the disaster you might as well never see the sun again or eat a banana again because it will damage you more long term. Just saying from what he told me. We have learned a lot from what happened just like every other disaster. I was scared about the fall out too but the way he put it put me at ease and he seemed like a straight shooter.

I can't guess, who, and why are they in the ocean? (and what ocean?)

Who is he, and who is 'they' that 'he' spoke to? his company boss, a government official, someone else? who?

What do you mean by ' He said that there is not much we should worry about because if something did happen they would never let the smartest people a superpower has "chill" in the area' - this statement is very confusing. Why would something happen, and what? And if something happened who are the smartest people?

On this quote: "In his conclusion if you are worried about the damage from the disaster you might as well never see the sun again or eat a banana again because it will damage you more long term."

Damage from fukushima? Who could be worried in the world?

I really am trying to understand your post more, I know communication on the internet via forum is not an ideal method. =D

reply to post by Philippines

He's most likely talking about a nuclear tech in the US Navy as a source. They have techs operate their nuclear reactors for nuclear powered vessels, and they learn a lot about radiation.

Ever since the disaster there have been fish caught immediately off the coast of Japan near the disaster site which have had radiation levels so high they are not considered safe to eat.

So, we probably don't want to eat fish caught in that region.

As the radioactivity dissipates traveling east, it becomes less concentrated and less harmful and at some point the fish are probably safe to eat. These conditions are dynamic and can depend on ocean currents, wind, and other factors though atmospheric distribution of radioactivity was probably most relevant only right after the disaster, for a few months. The West coast of the USA had elevated levels of radioactive iodine measured in milk though it was still thought to be safe to drink. Fortunately that has one of the shorter half-lives so it wasn't much of a concern after a few months.

If you're in the Philippines you probably have little to worry about unless someone there is trying to import fish caught off just off the east coast of Japan. There should be plenty of fish near the Philippines so I don't know why they would do that...they probably wouldn't.

Regarding the OP paper, I guess it takes some time to write the paper and publish it, but the data they look at is through March 2012, so it's all over a year old data (The paper was then received in Nov 2012, published in Jan 2013, revised April 2013 and then published again May 2013). Nothing in there was surprising to me.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for your input it is seems like it is sound in regards to what happened. Friends don't drop the dime on other friends when given info. If the general public was meant to know something then they will know and when they don't know it's in their best interest. The smarter you are the less likely you are to be corrupted and therefor more valuable the info but all it takes is someone to spill the beans to cause that source to be compromised. That's why I don't get why some people on here will repeat any and all things people say even if told in confidence to never repeat it.

And by compromised I mean "compromised"


To some this stuff is real life and not just some game of info vs disinfo like it is for us.

Anyone have any photos of it?, that would pretty insanely awesome.

Originally posted by marbles87
Thanks for your input it is seems like it is sound in regards to what happened.

You're welcome. I think it's sound, as I'm a former radiation worker so I've had training in this stuff. But the truth is, we don't really know how many people will die as a result of the Fukushima disaster. I think if there's any concern it would be greatest for Japanese schoolchildren living in contaminated areas since children are thought to have greater susceptibility to radiation damage (as they are still growing). One Japanese official quit his post in protest over how high Japan regulators set the limits of radiation that schoolchildren could be exposed to after the disaster.

Originally posted by Tuttle
Anyone have any photos of it?, that would pretty insanely awesome.

The plume is not visible so there's no way to photograph it.

The closest thing to a photograph is the illustration from the paper linked in the OP:


As you can see, this illustration supports what I said earlier about fish caught closest to the disaster site having the highest chances of being contaminated to unsafe levels, and it shows how low the levels have become with time and distance. However the illustration on the right suggests that by now the contamination problem isn't as bad.

That doesn't mean the fish there are now safe to eat, especially if they are over 2 years old and ingested a lot of radioactive material 2 years ago when concentration levels were higher. Also, these are surface measurements, so there could be (and probably are) deposits of radiation at depth that won't show up dramatically in surface measurements but will be ingested by fish, and especially by certain species of fish as fish radiation measurements have shown.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I think if there were any serious problems to be had Japan would be seeing immediate birth defects in children being born to young couples today since they would be the most susceptible and give us almost immediate data as in takes 9 months or less to see if the levels effected growing embryos on a measurable level. Similar to what happened after the USA nuked Japan.

reply to post by marbles87

Obviously the Japanese officials aren't going to let schoolchildren on sites with serious radiation problems.

The question raised by the official who resigned in protest of the elevated radiation standards for schoolchildren is, what happens on sites with radiation problems that are moderate rather than serious? The research in these cases is not really that clear and I've made some effort to review it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I know what you are saying. What I was saying is granted that it was leaking if the general populus was exposed to what we are to understand as significant and or harmful amounts of radiation we would be seeing the obvious signs of such. Birth defects, cancers in the young and elderly, health peoblems. Obviously ground zero and a large area outside is always a no go unless you are prepared for it. But I was referring to any significant amount that managed to get out that the general population was exposed to. As in since the people seem to be ok now after the disaster then it was not terribly bad.

reply to post by marbles87

I think it will be decades before the effects are known. It HAS been decades since Chernobyl and the research is still not completely clear. I think this is a better perspective than talking about birth defects.

Controversy over human health effects

The majority of premature deaths caused by Chernobyl are expected to be the result of cancers and other diseases induced by radiation in the decades after the event. This will be the result of a large population (some studies have considered the entire population of Europe) exposed to relatively low doses of radiation increasing the risk of cancer across that population. Interpretations of the current health state of exposed populations vary. Therefore, estimates of the ultimate human impact of the disaster have relied on numerical models of the effects of radiation on health. Furthermore, the effects of low-level radiation on human health are not well understood, and so the models used, notably the linear no threshold model, are open to question.

Given these factors, studies of Chernobyl's health effects have come up with different conclusions and are the subject of scientific and political controversy.

Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea about birth defects in Japan after the nuclear bombs:

Birth defects among the children of atomic-bomb survivors (1948-1954)

No statistically significant increase in major birth defects or other untoward pregnancy outcomes was seen among children of survivors.

While ongoing, that radioactive plume stuff happened in 2011!!!!