Drifter-based estimate of the 5 year dispersal of Fukushima-derived radionuclides

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 8177–8193, doi:10.1002/2014JC010306.Employing some 40 years of North Pacific drifter-track observations from the Global Drifter Program database, statistics defining the horizontal spread of radionuclides from Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean are investigated over a time scale of 5 years. A novel two-iteration method is employed to make the best use of the available drifter data. Drifter-based predictions of the temporal progression of the leading edge of the radionuclide distribution are compared to observed radionuclide concentrations from research surveys occupied in 2012 and 2013. Good agreement between the drifter-based predictions and the observations is found.This work was supported by the grant OCE-1356630 from the National Science Foundation. Data for cesium isotopes was supported by grants from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant GBMF3007) and the Deerbrook Charitable Trust