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WHERE WILL THE RADIATION FROM THE JAPAN REACTOR ACCIDENTS

TRAVEL? – by Idealist.ws

Contaminated air masses can cross the Pacific Ocean to CONUS (continental United
States), Canada or Alaska in days or weeks.

If debris rises to the upper troposphere, the jet stream can carry contaminants
quickly over the Pacific. After China’s first nuclear test, an atmospheric detonation on
Oct. 16, 1964 measuring 22 kilotons, the radioactive air masses reached the U.S. West
Coast just three days later - on October 19.
Radioactive plumes at lower tropospheric levels travel more slowly across the Earth.
A contaminated air mass from an aboveground Chinese nuclear test on May 9, 1966,
reached the U.S. West Coast on May 13 and left the continent on May 18. Radiation
measurements of pasteurized milk in the following week showed increased Iodine-131
levels in areas that were impacted by precipitation.

Ground-level radioactive releases dilute significantly over time, but also can impact
a larger swath of the Earth. The radiation releases from Japan could mimic the
behavior of ground-level releases from North Korea’s 2006 leaked underground nuclear
test on October 9. Radiation was first detected in Canada in late October.

(sources: Public Health Service's Radiological Health Data and Reports; and "Backtracking of Noble Gas Measurements Taken in the
Aftermath of the Announced October 2006 Event in North Korea by Means of PTS Methods in Nuclear Source Estimation and
Reconstruction," Pure and Applied Geophysics, 167, 2010, p. 592

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