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Precipitation Redistribution Method for Regional Simulations of Radioactive Material Transport During the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident
Author(s) -
Saya Akane,
Yoshikane Takao,
Chang EunChul,
Yoshimura Kei,
Oki Taikan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2018jd028531
Subject(s) - environmental science , precipitation , nuclear power plant , rain gauge , deposition (geology) , radar , meteorology , radionuclide , atmospheric sciences , nuclear engineering , nuclear physics , geology , engineering , physics , paleontology , telecommunications , sediment
To reproduce more accurate deposition maps of radioactive materials released in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011, our study focuses on the uncertainty of atmospheric transport simulations caused by precipitation. In our new method, simulated wet deposition distribution of 137 Cs is modified by high‐resolution radar rain gauge data of observed precipitation. Sensitivity experiments are conducted to examine the impact of using both different reanalyzed meteorological data sets as boundary condition and the observation data of precipitation as the redistribution of simulated precipitation. Among the results, the experiment modified by high‐resolution radar rain gauge data realized the most accurate cumulative 137 Cs deposition from 18 to 27 March. While the meteorological field is reasonably simulated in the atmospheric transport model in the experiments, the results showed that applying observed precipitation also contributes to improve the accuracy of simulated wet deposition amount.