TY - JOUR
T1 - International challenge to model the long-range transport of radioxenonreleased from medical isotope production to six Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty monitoring stations
AU - Maurer, Christian
AU - Baré, Jonathan
AU - Kusmierczyk-Michulec, Jolanta
AU - Crawford, Alice
AU - Eslinger, Paul W.
AU - Seibert, Petra
AU - Orr, Blake
AU - Philippe, Anne
AU - Ross, Ole
AU - Generoso, Sylvia
AU - Achim, Pascal
AU - Schoeppner, Michael
AU - Malo, Alain
AU - Ringbom, Anders
AU - Saunier, Olivier
AU - Quèlo, Denis
AU - Mathieu, Anne
AU - Kijima, Yuichi
AU - Stein, Ariel F.
AU - Chai, Tianfeng
AU - Ngan, Fong
AU - Leadbetter, Susan J.
AU - De Meutter, Pieter
N1 - Score=10
PY - 2018/3/8
Y1 - 2018/3/8
N2 - After performing afirst multi-model exercise in 2015 a comprehensive and technically more demanding at-mospheric transport modelling challenge was organized in 2016. Release data were provided by the AustralianNuclear Science and Technology Organization radiopharmaceutical facility in Sydney (Australia) for a onemonth period. Measured samples for the same time frame were gathered from six International MonitoringSystem stations in the Southern Hemisphere with distances to the source ranging between 680 (Melbourne) andabout 17,000 km (Tristan da Cunha). Participants were prompted to work with unit emissions in pre-definedemission intervals (daily, half-daily, 3-hourly and hourly emission segment lengths) and in order to perform ablind test actual emission values were not provided to them. Despite the quite different settings of the twoatmospheric transport modelling challenges there is common evidence that for long-range atmospheric transportusing temporally highly resolved emissions and highly space-resolved meteorological inputfields has no sig-nificant advantage compared to using lower resolved ones. As well an uncertainty of up to 20% in the daily stackemission data turns out to be acceptable for the purpose of a study like this. Model performance at individualstations is quite diverse depending largely on successfully capturing boundary layer processes. No single model-meteorology combination performs best for all stations. Moreover, the stations statistics do not depend on thedistance between the source and the individual stations. Finally, it became more evident how future exercises
AB - After performing afirst multi-model exercise in 2015 a comprehensive and technically more demanding at-mospheric transport modelling challenge was organized in 2016. Release data were provided by the AustralianNuclear Science and Technology Organization radiopharmaceutical facility in Sydney (Australia) for a onemonth period. Measured samples for the same time frame were gathered from six International MonitoringSystem stations in the Southern Hemisphere with distances to the source ranging between 680 (Melbourne) andabout 17,000 km (Tristan da Cunha). Participants were prompted to work with unit emissions in pre-definedemission intervals (daily, half-daily, 3-hourly and hourly emission segment lengths) and in order to perform ablind test actual emission values were not provided to them. Despite the quite different settings of the twoatmospheric transport modelling challenges there is common evidence that for long-range atmospheric transportusing temporally highly resolved emissions and highly space-resolved meteorological inputfields has no sig-nificant advantage compared to using lower resolved ones. As well an uncertainty of up to 20% in the daily stackemission data turns out to be acceptable for the purpose of a study like this. Model performance at individualstations is quite diverse depending largely on successfully capturing boundary layer processes. No single model-meteorology combination performs best for all stations. Moreover, the stations statistics do not depend on thedistance between the source and the individual stations. Finally, it became more evident how future exercises
KW - Atmospheric transport modelling
KW - Nuclear explosion monitoring
KW - Medical isotope production
KW - Radioxenon background
KW - Model inter-comparison and evaluation
UR - http://ecm.sckcen.be/OTCS/llisapi.dll/open/34307301
U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2018.01.030
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2018.01.030
M3 - Article
SN - 0265-931X
VL - 192
SP - 667
EP - 686
JO - Journal of environmental radioactivity
JF - Journal of environmental radioactivity
ER -