Atmospheric dispersion and ground deposition induced by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident: A local-scale simulation and sensitivity study

Korsakissok, Irène; Mathieu, Anne; Didier, Damien

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013.01.002

Cited by 106 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The innermost domain has 160 × 160 grids and is centered at 36.9 • N, 140.4 • E. The simulation uses 27 vertical levels for all domains, with the highest level at the 10 000 Pa isobaric surface (WRF uses terrain following pressure coordinates in the vertical direction). The emissions are only released at the lowest level which is about 25 m. The release height reported in the literature primarily ranges from 20 to 150 m but sometimes extended up to 1 km (Korsakissok et al, 2013;Stohl et al, 2012). However, accurate data on the vertical distribution of the emissions is still absent, which remains a source of uncertainty when simulating the transport and deposition from the Fukushima accident.…”

Section: Wrf Configurationsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The resistance method is used for parameterizing dry deposition and the parameterization based on precipitation rate is used for wet deposition. The partitioning of 131 I at the source is chosen to be 80 % gas as recommended by several studies (Korsakissok et al, 2013;Morino et al, 2011). Moreover, in the reference case, the size distribution of particulate radionuclides is not taken into account: all particulate radionuclides have the same size, which is the average value.…”

Section: Reference Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the study of Korsakissok et al (2013) reported that the total deposition (sum of dry and wet deposition within a certain domain; in this paper, it is used interchangeably with ground deposition) from the Fukushima accident of 137 Cs (over land and within 80 km of FDNPP) is less than 1.5 × 10 15 Bq with the emission rate estimated by (Chino et al, 2011) but more than 5.5 × 10 15 Bq with the emission rate estimated by Stohl et al (2012). The importance of using accurate estimation of emission source strength has been also demonstrated by the sensitivity analyses of Morino et al (2013).…”

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Emission rate is another critical factor that controls the rate of atmospheric transport and ground deposition of radionuclides (Korsakissok et al, 2013;Morino et al, 2011Morino et al, , 2013. For instance, the study of Korsakissok et al (2013) reported that the total deposition (sum of dry and wet deposition within a certain domain; in this paper, it is used interchangeably with ground deposition) from the Fukushima accident of 137 Cs (over land and within 80 km of FDNPP) is less than 1.5 × 10 15 Bq with the emission rate estimated by (Chino et al, 2011) but more than 5.5 × 10 15 Bq with the emission rate estimated by Stohl et al (2012).…”

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, previous studies solely focused on the emission rate, and other emission characteristics such as the gas partitioning of 131 I were also not considered. The gaseous fraction of 131 I was simply set as a constant such as 80 % (Morino et al, 2011) and 2/3 ( Korsakissok et al, 2013). A review (Sportisse, 2007) shows that the gaseous fraction varies among different studies: 65 to 80 % (Chamberlain, 1991), 50-65 % (Clark and Smith, 1988), and 70-90 % in Baklanov and Sorensen (2001).…”

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Huang

et al. 2014

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. The atmospheric transport and ground deposition of radioactive isotopes 131 I and 137 Cs during and after the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident (March 2011) are investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model. The aim is to assess the skill of WRF in simulating these processes and the sensitivity of the model's performance to various parameterizations of unresolved physics. The WRF-Chem model is first upgraded by implementing a radioactive decay term into the advection-diffusion solver and adding three parameterizations for dry deposition and two parameterizations for wet deposition. Different microphysics and horizontal turbulent diffusion schemes are then tested for their ability to reproduce observed meteorological conditions. Subsequently, the influence of emission characteristics (including the emission rate, the gas partitioning of 131 I and the size distribution of 137 Cs) on the simulated transport and deposition is examined. The results show that the model can predict the wind fields and rainfall realistically and that the ground deposition of the radionuclides can also be captured reasonably well. The modeled precipitation is largely influenced by the microphysics schemes, while the influence of the horizontal diffusion schemes on the wind fields is subtle. However, the ground deposition of radionuclides is sensitive to both horizontal diffusion schemes and microphysical schemes. Wet deposition dominated over dry deposition at most of the observation stations, but not at all locations in the simulated domain. To assess the sensitivity of the total daily deposition to all of the model physics and inputs, the averaged absolute value of the difference (AAD) is proposed. Based on AAD, the total deposition is mainly influenced by the emission rate for both 131 I and 137 Cs; while it is not sensitive to the dry deposition parameterizations since the dry deposition is just a minor fraction of the total deposition. Moreover, for 131 I, the deposition is moderately sensitive (AAD between 10 and 40 % between different runs) to the microphysics schemes, the horizontal diffusion schemes, gas-partitioning and wet deposition parameterizations. For 137 Cs, the deposition is very sensitive (AAD exceeding 40 % between different runs) to the microphysics schemes and wet deposition parameterizations, but moderately sensitive to the horizontal diffusion schemes and the size distribution.

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Section: Wrf Configurationsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Reference Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Published By Copernicus Publications On Behalf Of the Europementioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Huang

et al. 2014

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Emulation and Sobol' sensitivity analysis of an atmospheric dispersion model applied to the Fukushima nuclear accident

et al. 2016

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Simulations of the atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides involve large uncertainties originating from the limited knowledge of meteorological input data, composition, amount and timing of emissions, and some model parameters. The estimation of these uncertainties is an essential complement to modeling for decision making in case of an accidental release. We have studied the relative influence of a set of uncertain inputs on several outputs from the Eulerian model Polyphemus/Polair3D on the Fukushima case. We chose to use the variance-based sensitivity analysis method of Sobol'. This method requires a large number of model evaluations which was not achievable directly due to the high computational cost of Polyphemus/Polair3D. To circumvent this issue, we built a mathematical approximation of the model using Gaussian process emulation. We observed that aggregated outputs are mainly driven by the amount of emitted radionuclides, while local outputs are mostly sensitive to wind perturbations. The release height is notably influential, but only in the vicinity of the source. Finally, averaging either spatially or temporally tends to cancel out interactions between uncertain inputs. Key Points: • We performed a Sobol' sensitivity analysis of an atmospheric dispersion model on the Fukushima case • The computational cost was drastically reduced using a Gaussian process emulator of the model • Aggregated outputs are controlled by emitted amounts and local outputs by wind perturbations Supporting Information: • Software S1 • Software S2 Correspondence to: S. Girard, pro@sylvaingirard.net Citation: Girard, S., V. Mallet, I. Korsakissok, and A. Mathieu (2016), Emulation and Sobol' sensitivity analysis of an atmospheric dispersion model applied to the Fukushima nuclear accident,

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Marine Dispersion Modelling and Expertise Tools for Accidental Radiological Contamination of French Coasts

Duffa

2020

Advances in Hydroinformatics

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Atmospheric dispersion and ground deposition induced by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident: A local-scale simulation and sensitivity study

Cited by 106 publications

References 16 publications

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Emulation and Sobol' sensitivity analysis of an atmospheric dispersion model applied to the Fukushima nuclear accident

Marine Dispersion Modelling and Expertise Tools for Accidental Radiological Contamination of French Coasts

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