Scientists tracking the radiation are using their data not just to gauge threats to human health, but to bolster the science of climate change, as well.
“This is kind of an experiment that’s never really been conducted before in our lifetime,” says John Smith of Canada’s Bedford Institute of Oceanography.
Smith and a team of scientists used this to their advantage, publishing the first paper outlining the spread of cesium-137 eastward from Japan.
Now, with Smith’s findings, they have real-time data to back those models up.
“It’s a way to prove that these models actually work the way they’re intended and that they’re actually predicting reality,” says smith.
The reliability of these computer current models is important on several fronts.
First, they allow predictions of where and how much Fukushima radiation will make it to U.S. and Canadian shores.
Scientists say the radiation will not be concentrated enough to pose a threat to human health.Here's the math, so to speak:
Currently, scientists are finding levels of radioactive cesium-137 from Fukushima at about 2 Bq/m3 off the coast of British Columbia. This is slightly higher than ambient radiation levels in ocean water and about the same level of cesium-137 still in the ocean from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests of the last century.
EPA drinking water standards for cesium-137 is 7,400 Bq/m3.
“The first arrival of the signal was off the coast of British Columbia, but it will take a little longer for the signal to work it’s way down the western seaboard of the United States,” Smith says.
Still these levels will be far before government safety thresholds.
The findings of Smith’s team were published in the .
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