Abstract
Chernobyl radioactivity in precipitation was measured at Tsukuba, Japan, as were both surface-air concentrations and particle-size distributions of Chernobyl-released radionuclides. To understand the wet removal processes of the Chernobyl radionuclides, i.e.137Cs,103Ru, and90Sr, wet deposition velocities were calculated. The wet deposition velocities of the Chernobyl radioactivity for individual rainfall events varied largely. The wet deposition velocity is given as the product of washout ratio and rainfall rate. Typically, it was found that the washout ratios of90Sr are systematically larger than those of137Cs. In order to explain this fact, we examined the relationship between the washout ratios and particle sizes of radionuclide-bearing aerosols. A positive correlation between corrected washout ratios and particle size was found with a particle diameter range from 0.35 to 1.2 µm. The result strongly suggests that the factors controlling the wet removal of the Chernobyl radioactivity for individual rainfall events are surface air concentration, particle size, and rainfall rate, rather than precipitation amount, which is in agreement with previous understandings. This suggests that high contamination areas of radioactivity are formed during heavy rainfall events with high rainfall rates in the case of tropospheric injection such as the Chernobyl accident.
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Hirose, K., Takatani, S. & Aoyama, M. Wet deposition of radionuclides derived from the Chernobyl accident. J Atmos Chem 17, 61–71 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00699114
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00699114