Radiation from Japan not likely to harm North America
Radiation from Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been detected 100 miles to the northeast, over the Pacific Ocean, by the U.S. military. Westerly to southwesterly winds have predominated over Japan the past few days, carrying most of the radiation eastwards out to sea. The latest forecast for Sendai, Japan, located about 40 miles north of the Fukushima nuclear plant, calls for winds with a westerly component to dominate for the remainder of the week, with the exception of a 6-hour period on Tuesday. Thus, any radiation released by the nuclear plant will primarily affect Japan or blow out to sea. A good tool to predict the radiation cloud's path is NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model. The model uses the GFS model's winds to track the movement of a hypothetical release of a substance into the atmosphere. One can specify the altitude of the release as well as the location, and follow the trajectory for up to two weeks. However, given the highly chaotic nature of the atmosphere's winds, trajectories beyond about 3 days have huge uncertainties.One can get only a general idea of where a plume is headed beyond 3 days. I've been performing a number of runs of HYSPLIT over past few days, and so far great majority of these runs have taken plumes of radioactivity emitted from Japan's east coast eastwards over the Pacific, with the plumes staying over water for at least 5 days. Some of the plumes move over eastern Siberia, Alaska, Canada, the U.S., and Mexico in 5 - 7 days. Such a long time spent over water will mean that the vast majority of the radioactive particles will settle out of the atmosphere or get caught up in precipitation and rained out. It is highly unlikely that any radiation capable of causing harm to people will be left in atmosphere after seven days and 2000+ miles of travel distance. Even the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which had a far more serious release of radioactivity, was unable to spread significant contamination more than about 1000 miles.
Figure 1. Forecast 7-day movement of a plume of radioactive plume of air emitted at 12 UTC Saturday, March 12, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Radioactivity emitted at 2 levels is tracked: 100 meters (red) and 300 meters (blue). Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
Figure 2. Forecast 7-day movement of a plume of radioactive plume of air emitted at 12 UTC Sunday, March 13, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Radioactivity emitted at 2 levels is tracked: 100 meters (red) and 300 meters (blue). Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
Figure 3. Forecast 7-day movement of a plume of radioactive plume of air emitted at 12 UTC Monday, March 14, 2011 from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Radioactivity emitted at 2 levels is tracked: 100 meters (red) and 300 meters (blue). Images created using NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model.
I'll have an update Tuesday morning.
Jeff Masters
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0402: Higher than normal radiation levels are detected in Tokyo, the AFP is quoting the city government as saying.
Yes they should have, Sorry Pat!
Correct... and snow starting Wend.
#0402: Higher than normal radiation levels are detected in Tokyo, the AFP is quoting the city government as saying.
Think.... Whats the first thing that comes after an earthquake on a tiny island! I know, a tsunami! Do I get a cookie! And to think, I never built a nuclear power plant. WOW!
In a nationally televised speech, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the radiation level spreading from the plant "seems very high, and there is still a risk of more radiation coming out."
Kan said 400 millisieverts of radiation were detected at the plant at about 10:30. That is 20 times the amount a radiation worker may be exposed to annually.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said, "Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far away, the levels should be lower."
To further complicate the situation, the prevailing winds have shifted and are no longer blowing offshore, but are now wafting the radioactivity in a southerly direction toward Tokyo. The French Embassy said the plume should reach that city in about 10 hours, but unless the radiation release increases substantially, experts believe it will be sufficiently diluted by then to not present a problem.
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian and Times news services contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
LinktoLATimesStory
You have to remember though they have never had a 8.9 earthquake ... they did not expect to get one that strong.
Well you aren't talking about flooding here, you are talking about deformed children and people that will suffer pain that was only supposed to come from hell. I think I would rather drown then suffer the results of nuclear radiation.
Friday's earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan was upgraded to a magnitude 9.0 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Kyodo News agency reported Sunday.
Thanks Keeper A moment or two of tranquility was needed in lieu of the worldly problems that seem to be mounting daily.
Maybe will get some good news in the morning :)
thats right I keep forgetting
The nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima plant following Friday's earthquake and tsunami has led to anxious questions in Germany about the safety of its own nuclear reactors and is putting the government under intense pressure to rethink its decision to extend plant lifetimes by an average of 12 years.
German media commentators across the political spectrum are saying the accident in a highly developed nation such as Japan is further evidence that nuclear power isn't safe. One commentator in the conservative Die Welt went as far as to liken the global impact of the Fukushima explosions to that of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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Keep Rocks!
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At least up to this time, no video has appeared...
Any links available??
Excellent info...
It isn't necessarily a failure of planning as much as it is a failure of imagination, an inability to rationally accept the idea that something of this magnitude could and would happen and then build for it.
The Pacific Northwest could have a great quake of 9.0 as the Juan de Fuca plate is subducting below the North American plate and hasn't moved substantially since 1700, but even that wasn't accepted as a possibility within the scientific community until the mid-1990's. Now, after the Indonesian quake/tsunami of 2004, we have tsunami warning sirens and designated escape routes from the coastal communities to higher ground. The system might give residents a small chance of getting out of the way of a tsunami now. Before 2004, though, if we'd had our "big one" no one would have known what to do.
My point is, we build on our knowledge bit by bit, piece by piece, hopefully making things better as we go along. And it's manifestly unfair to criticize people of 40 years ago for not utilizing knowledge they didn't have to prepare for something they couldn't imagine.
Just my $0.02, FWIW.
So it seems We'll have to wait for a Satellite photo of the area....
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On 15.03.2011 at 04:34 GMT 2
This event should be changed in classification from INES 4 to INES 5.
Reasons:
- External release of radioactive material (in quantities radiologically equivalent to the order of hundreds to thousands of terabecquerels of iodine-131). Such a release would be likely to result in partial implementation of countermeasures covered by emergency plans to lessen the likelihood of health effects.
- Severe damage to the installation. This may involve severe damage to a large fraction of the core of a power reactor, a major criticality accident or a major fire or explosion releasing large quantities of radioactivity within the installation.
Japan's Meteorological Agency has warned of a major aftershock within the next 3 days.
Agency officials told reporters that aftershocks with an intensity of 5 and over on the Japanese scale of zero to seven have been registered nearly 200 times since Friday, when northeastern Japan was rocked by a record earthquake.
The epicenters of the jolts cover an area 500 kilometers north to south, between the coasts of Iwate and Ibaraki, and 200 kilometers west to east.
Agency expert Takashi Yokota said the likelihood of a tremor measuring five or over within the next 3 days remains at 40 percent.
He said that if the focus is close to the epicenter of the initial earthquake, the aftershock may be from six minus to six plus and may trigger a tsunami.
Monday, March 14, 2011 17:44 0900 (JST)
Tuesday, March 15 05:05 am
(Reuters) - Japan asked local governments to make more frequent radiation checks after explosions at two nuclear reactors, with reports of radiation levels nine times normal briefly detected in Kanagawa near Tokyo. Below are some facts about the health dangers posed by higher radiation levels.
* Chief cabinet minister Yukio Edano said radiation levels near the stricken plant on the northeast coast reached as high as 400 millisieverts (mSv) an hour, thousands of times higher than readings before the blast. That would be 20 times the current yearly level for some nuclear-industry employees and uranium miners.
* Exposure to 350 mSv was the criterion for relocating people after the Chernobyl accident, according to the World Nuclear Association.
* People are exposed to natural radiation of about 2 mSv a year.
* Airline crew flying the New York-Tokyo polar route are exposed to 9 mSv a year.
* Exposure to 100 mSv a year is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident. A cumulative 1,000 mSv would probably cause a fatal cancer many years later in five out of every 100 persons exposed to it.
*A single 1,000 mSv dose causes radiation sickness such as nausea but not death. A single does of 5,000 mSv would kill about half of those exposed to it within a month.
*"Very acute radiation, like that which happened in Chernobyl and to the Japanese workers at the nuclear power station, is unlikely for the population," said Lam Ching-wan, a chemical pathologist at the university of Hong Kong.
Source: the World Nuclear Association
Navy link isn't working for me..
Doesn't look like the front will bring much to ECFL. Nice ring aroun the moon tonight makes me want to hope.
Nite ya'll.
Atlantic
90Q
Indian Ocean
92B
Southern Hemisphere
98S
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