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Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds
Radioactive plumes can spread far and wide depending on wind conditions. The plumes often frequently reached the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is approximately 200 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, under spatially heterogeneous wind fields in March 2011. To reduce exposure to...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5111080/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27848988 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36584 |
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author | Yoshikane, Takao Yoshimura, Kei Chang, Eun-Chul Saya, Akane Oki, Taikan |
author_facet | Yoshikane, Takao Yoshimura, Kei Chang, Eun-Chul Saya, Akane Oki, Taikan |
author_sort | Yoshikane, Takao |
collection | PubMed |
description | Radioactive plumes can spread far and wide depending on wind conditions. The plumes often frequently reached the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is approximately 200 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, under spatially heterogeneous wind fields in March 2011. To reduce exposure to radioactive plumes, the behaviour of the plumes must be known. However, the transport mechanism of radioactive plumes is not fully understood. Using a regional climate model, we show that multiple diurnal cycle processes play a key role in the frequent transport of radioactive plumes to the Tokyo metropolitan area. The observed data and hindcast results indicate that the radioactive plume moves along the local winds, which comprise the northeasterly local wind (NELW) associated with the meso-scale low-pressure system (meso-low) and the northerly sea wind (NSW) during the night. The long-term analysis and sensitivity simulations also show the nocturnal processes that the NELW caused by the meso-low and the NSW are formed east of the Tokyo metropolitan area and from Fukushima offshore east of the Tokyo metropolitan area, respectively, when neither winter monsoons nor extra-tropical cyclones are predominant. These findings indicate that the radioactive plumes could reach faraway places frequently via nocturnal local processes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5111080 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-51110802016-11-23 Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds Yoshikane, Takao Yoshimura, Kei Chang, Eun-Chul Saya, Akane Oki, Taikan Sci Rep Article Radioactive plumes can spread far and wide depending on wind conditions. The plumes often frequently reached the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is approximately 200 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, under spatially heterogeneous wind fields in March 2011. To reduce exposure to radioactive plumes, the behaviour of the plumes must be known. However, the transport mechanism of radioactive plumes is not fully understood. Using a regional climate model, we show that multiple diurnal cycle processes play a key role in the frequent transport of radioactive plumes to the Tokyo metropolitan area. The observed data and hindcast results indicate that the radioactive plume moves along the local winds, which comprise the northeasterly local wind (NELW) associated with the meso-scale low-pressure system (meso-low) and the northerly sea wind (NSW) during the night. The long-term analysis and sensitivity simulations also show the nocturnal processes that the NELW caused by the meso-low and the NSW are formed east of the Tokyo metropolitan area and from Fukushima offshore east of the Tokyo metropolitan area, respectively, when neither winter monsoons nor extra-tropical cyclones are predominant. These findings indicate that the radioactive plumes could reach faraway places frequently via nocturnal local processes. Nature Publishing Group 2016-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5111080/ /pubmed/27848988 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36584 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Yoshikane, Takao Yoshimura, Kei Chang, Eun-Chul Saya, Akane Oki, Taikan Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title | Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title_full | Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title_fullStr | Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title_full_unstemmed | Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title_short | Long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
title_sort | long-distance transport of radioactive plume by nocturnal local winds |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5111080/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27848988 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36584 |
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