Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 139 (2015) 171

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Journal of Environmental Radioactivity journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvrad

Editorial

Special issue “WMO task team on meteorological analyses for Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident” Following a magnitude-9 earthquake off the coast of Japan on 11 March 2011 and a related multi-meter tsunami wave hitting the eastern coastline of Honshu, Japan, the worst civil nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. In line with its international obligations and mandates, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provided important input to the disaster response operations, including the simulation of the spread of radionuclides from the nuclear facility performed by WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs), and the on-site support by the National Meteorological Centre (NMC) Vienna in the Incident and Emergency Centre of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The atmospheric transport and dispersion modelling (ATDM) efforts as well as the related analyses, for example source estimates of key nuclides, were by far not trivial, due to the complex terrain in the disaster area, the variable precipitation patters, and the fact that a significant part of the radioactivity was transported by the prevailing winds towards the sea, where it could not be readily monitored. Last but not least, immediately after the accident, widespread power loss and the related failure of the technical communication infrastructure in Japan posed additional challenges. In this situation, radionuclide monitoring data provided by the Provisional Technical Secretariat of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) proved to be very important. Data from the organization's radionuclide network, which is part of the International Monitoring System of CTBTO, were initially used to get estimates of the radionuclide source terms and later on to validate the models. In autumn 2011, after the end of the emergency phase, WMO established a small Task Team (TT) in response to a request from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). The Committee asked for assistance regarding the meteorological aspects of its dose calculations, which were conducted to perform an assessment of the radiological consequences of the Fukushima accident to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly. The TT consisted of participants from Japan, U.S., UK, Canada and Austria and was chaired by Roland

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2014.09.008 0265-931X/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Draxler. The TT examined how the usage of different meteorological analyses and the introduction of additional meteorological observational data, that were not available during the crisis response phase, could improve atmospheric transport, dispersion and deposition calculations, which are critical components of the dose computations to be performed by UNSCEAR. In total, the five TT members produced 20 different ATDM-meteorology simulations, which were subsequently made available to the UNSCEAR community. The UNSCEAR report on levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east-Japan earthquake and tsunami is already published (UNSCEAR, 2014), as is the WMO TT report (WMO, 2013). This special issue of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity gives an overview on the methodologies used for the comparison of the different models, the ensemble methods applied, and the validation activities for the models that are used in emergency response centres world-wide. Readers will get an overview on what was achieved in the field of ATDM research in the decades following the Chernobyl accident, where we currently are, what further improvements are needed, and will understand how important these technologies are for future emergency response and crisis management applications. References UNSCEAR, 2014. UNSCEAR 2013 Report. In: Report to the General Assembly, Scientific Annex a: Levels and Effects of Radiation Exposure Due to the Nuclear Accident after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, vol. I. United Nations Publication, New York, ISBN 978-92-1-142291-7, 311 p. WMO, 2013. Evaluation of Meteorological Analyses for the Radionuclide Dispersion and Deposition from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident. WMO-No. 1120, ISBN 978-92-63-11120-3, 64 p, Geneva.

G. Wotawa, Guest Editor Zentralanstalt fuer Meteorologie und Geodynamik, Vienna, Austria E-mail address: [email protected]. Available online 11 October 2014

Special issue "WMO task team on meteorological analyses for Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident".

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