Papers in Meteorology and Geophysics, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp 51-63, 1994
Numerical Simulation of Regional Scale Dispersion of Radioactive Pollutants from the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
By Takehiko Satomura, Fujio Kimura*, Hidetaka Sasaki, Tomoaki Yoshikawa and Yoshitaka Muraji**
Meteorological Research Institute
*Present affiliation: Institute of Geoscience, Univ. of Tsukuba
**International Meteorological Oceanographic Consultant, Present affiliation: Energy Sharing Co., Ltd.,
Abstract
Air concentration and deposition of radioactive pollutants in Europe after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident is simulated using a long-range transport model developed in the MRI. This model is composed of the weather forecasting part which was the routine regional weather forecasting model of the JMA and the Lagrangian advection-diffusion part. The source data distributed by the ATMES project is used to determine the initial release rate from the power plant. Calculated concentrations of Cs-137 and I-131 in the surface level atmosphere agree well with observation. Surface deposition of Cs-137 has, however, poor correlation with the observed deposition. Bad precipitation forecast of the weather forecasting part of the model and the difference between the horizontal scale represented by observation and by simulation are considered to be responsible for this poor correlation.