Posts

Our article titled “New insights on radioactivity from Fukushima” was published in the Green Week Issue (Issue 370, 27 May 2013) of the EU Parliament Magazine. The article is based on our study of the dispersion of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima, during several months after the nuclear reactor accidents in the framework of an ERC Advanced Researcher Grant. The results suggest that an area of more than 34,000 km2 in Japan was radioactively contaminated, and that about 3% of the radioactive iodine reached Europe (publication doi: 10.

Modeling the global atmospheric dispersion and deposition of radionuclides released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident. The EMAC atmospheric chemistry – general circulation model was used, with circulation dynamics nudged towards ECMWF ERA-Interim reanalysis data. We applied a resolution of approximately 0.5 degrees in latitude and longitude. The model accounts for emissions and transport of the radioactive isotopes 131I and 137Cs, and removal processes through precipitation, particle sedimentation and dry deposition.

“New insight on the spread of contamination from Fukushima”, Issue 310, 14 December 2012 [pdf] Our publication on modelling the global atmospheric transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident (doi: 10.5194/acp-13-1425-2013) was selected and featured in the European Comission’s Science for Enviroment Policy Newsletter. Our study on the transport of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima in the two months after the nuclear incident suggests that they were at official levels of contamination for 34,000 km² of Japan, and that 2.

From local air pollution to global change in one century. We modeled air pollution plumes from 35 major population centres during the past century. The animation produced shows the atmospheric emission and transport of a 10-day lifetime tracer, scaled to CO emissions and population growth. It is meant to convey the rapid expansion of population living in cities during the 20th century and that megacity air pollution is not any more a local phenomenon but rather one which has global impact.

Atmospheric dispersion and fallout from the Mari ammunition explosion on 11 July 2011. Research scientists at The Cyprus Institute have computed the atmospheric dispersion of debris from the Mari ammunition explosion on 11 July, 2011, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. A high-resolution computational model of the atmosphere (3x3 km resolution) was used together with meteorological observations, starting at 6am local time. The explosion cloud was computed by initializing the explosion aerosol plume up to a height of 5.