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Cid_Yama wrote:Carrier Ronald Reagan passes through radioactive 'cloud' off Japan

By Dr. Jeff Masters
Published: 1:00 PM GMT on March 14, 2011
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.

mos6507 wrote:

Cid_Yama wrote:Carrier Ronald Reagan passes through radioactive 'cloud' off Japan

This headline sounds like the premise of a bad 1950s horror movie.

The subject of Stoneleigh's master thesis at the law faculty of Warwick University in Coventry, England, where she studied International Law in Development, was nuclear safety research.

dohboi wrote:The fact that we have had nuclear fall out land on our shores in the past (not only from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but from the open air testing in the Pacific and in the SW) is supposed to somehow comfort us? No one knows how many people got cancer from those exposures as it is impossible to track the source. But there is no question that some people did (unless, of course, one is just a pro-nuke fanatic, in which case you are just going to go ahead and think whatever supports your own warped view.)

DomusAlbion wrote:There are dangers inherent in all forms of energy production.

DomusAlbion wrote:Shit happens and Death is going to get you in the end. It's more important to live a good and useful life and not be afraid.

Radioactive milk could have come from across state

SPOKANE, Wash. -- That slightly radioactive milk found in Spokane could have come from anywhere in the state or northern Idaho.

The Washington Department of Agriculture says the Darigold plant in Spokane that bottled the milk receives its supply from dairies across the state and the panhandle of Idaho. The radiation levels are below the level of public health concern and the agency says milk produced in the state remains safe to drink.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week said Japan's radioactive fallout is showing up in milk in Washington and California, most likely after a cow ate tainted grass or drank puddles of rainwater containing it. Iodine-131, the type that was found, is short-lived and decays fairly quickly, becoming harmless.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_japan_earthquake_milk.html

Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.

New research shows that the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere work to transform elemental mercury into oxidized mercury, which can easily be deposited into aquatic ecosystems and ultimately enter the food chain.


Exactly how the oxidation takes place is not known with certainty but, once the transformation takes place, the oxidized mercury is quickly removed from the atmosphere, mostly through precipitation or air moving to the surface. After it settles to the surface, the oxidized mercury is transformed by bacteria into methyl mercury, a form that can be taken into the food chain and eventually can result in mercury-contaminated fish.

Some areas, such as the Southwest United States, appear to have specific climate conditions that allow them to receive more oxidized mercury from the upper atmosphere than other areas, Lyman noted.

He added that where the mercury settles to the surface can be thousands of miles from where it was emitted. For example, mercury from coal burning in Asia could rise into the atmosphere and circle the globe several times before it is oxidized, then could come to the surface anywhere. Understanding where it is oxidized and deposited would help efforts to predict ecosystem impacts of mercury emissions, he said.

An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future.

This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US.

The wind map is a personal art project, not associated with any company. We've done our best to make this as accurate as possible, but can't make any guarantees about the correctness of the data or our software. Please do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wildfires