Journal ArticleDOI
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
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In this paper, a long distance measurement of radio-xenon in Yellowknife, Canada, in late October 2006 was used to enhance the resolution of the DPRK events' xenon source reconstruction.Abstract:
The announced October 2006 nuclear test explosion in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been the first real test regarding the technical capabilities of the verification system built up by the Vienna-based Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to detect and locate a nuclear test event. This paper enhances the resolution of the DPRK events’ xenon source reconstruction published by Saey et al. (2007, “A long distance measurement of radioxenon in Yellowknife, Canada, in late October 2006”, GRL, Vol. 34, L20802) that was based solely on radio-xenon measurements taken at the remote radionuclide station in Yellowknife, Canada by involving additional measurements taken by a mobile noble gas system deployed quite close to the event location in the Republic of Korea (ROK). Moreover the horizontal resolution of the forward and backward atmospheric transport modelling methods applied for the source scenario reconstruction has been enhanced appropriately to reflect the considerably shorter source-receptor distances examined in comparison to the previously published source reconstruction. It is shown that the 133Xe measurements in Yellowknife could register 133Xe traces from the nuclear explosion during the first 3 days after the event, while the mobile measurements were rather sensitive to releases during days 2–4 after the explosion. According to the analysis, the most likely source scenario would consist of an initial (possibly up to 21 h delayed) venting of 1 × 10−15 Bq 133Xe during the first 24 h, followed by a two orders of magnitude weaker seepage during the following 3 days. Both measurements corroborate the scenario of a rather rapid venting and soil diffusion of the 133Xe yielded during the explosion. While the Swedish mobile measurements were crucial to enhancement of the reconstruction of the source scenario, given the installation status of the IMS xenon network at the time of the event, a sensitivity analysis revealed that the fully developed network would have been able to detect 133Xe traces from the Korean explosion at a number of stations and allowed for an even better constraint on the release function. The station Ussuriysk, Russia, being in operation in 2006, would have registered 133Xe within 1 day and with a three orders of magnitudes stronger signal compared to the detection at Yellowknife.read more
Citations
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Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition
Andreas Stohl,Petra Seibert,Gerhard Wotawa,Delia Arnold,Delia Arnold,John F. Burkhart,Sabine Eckhardt,C. Tapia,Arturo Vargas,Teppei J. Yasunari +9 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors determined the emissions into the atmosphere of two isotopes, the noble gas xenon-133 (133Xe) and the aerosol-bound caesium-137 (137Cs), which have very different release characteristics as well as behavior in the atmosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition
Andreas Stohl,Petra Seibert,Gerhard Wotawa,Delia Arnold,Delia Arnold,John F. Burkhart,Sabine Eckhardt,C. Tapia,Arturo Vargas,Teppei J. Yasunari +9 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors determined the emissions into the atmosphere of two isotopes, the noble gas xenon-133 (133Xe) and the aerosol-bound caesium-137 (137Cs), which have very different release characteristics as well as behavior in the atmosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Discrimination of Nuclear Explosions against Civilian Sources Based on Atmospheric Xenon Isotopic Activity Ratios
Martin Kalinowski,Anders Axelsson,Marc Bean,X. Blanchard,T.W. Bowyer,G. Brachet,Simon Hebel,Justin I. McIntyre,Jana Peters,Christoph Pistner,Maria Raith,A. Ringbom,Paul R. J. Saey,Clemens Schlosser,T. J. Stocki,T. Taffary,R. Kurt Ungar +16 more
TL;DR: A global monitoring system for atmospheric xenon radioactivity is being established as part of the International Monitoring System that will verify compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) once the treaty has entered into force as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anthropogenic radionuclides in the atmosphere observed at Tsukuba: characteristics of the radionuclides derived from Fukushima.
Taeko Doi,Kazuyoshi Masumoto,Akihiro Toyoda,Atsushi Tanaka,Yasuyuki Shibata,Katsumi Hirose,Katsumi Hirose +6 more
TL;DR: Large variations of ratios of (131)I/(137)Cs, (132)Te/(137]Cs, and (99)Mo ((99m)Tc)/(137)C suggest that the behaviors of these radionuclides in the atmosphere, including the processes of their emission, differed each other.
Journal ArticleDOI
Computation and Analysis of the Global Distribution of the Radioxenon Isotope 133Xe based on Emissions from Nuclear Power Plants and Radioisotope Production Facilities and its Relevance for the Verification of the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Gerhard Wotawa,Gerhard Wotawa,Andreas Becker,Martin Kalinowski,Paul R. J. Saey,Matthias P. Tuma,Matthias Zähringer +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, an emission inventory of the four relevant xenon isotopes has been created, which specifies source terms for each power plant, and based on the emissions known, the resulting 133Xe concentration levels at all noble gas stations of the final CTBT verification network were calculated and found to be consistent with observations.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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