Fallout deposition in the Marshall Islands @ H. L. Beck er av.

133

direction. For example, at Rongelap in the northern

shown in Table 1 of Simon et al. (2010a), we believe

those 45 tests deposited local or regional fallout primarily only on thetest site atolls of Bikini and Enewetak and
on the open ocean outside of the area of the Marshall
Islands. This conclusion is based on our analysis of
available monitoring and meteorological data, as well as
corroboration by data in unpublished reports.
Fig. 1 shows an example of calculated directions of
travel of air masses as they moved away from the nuclear
test site, clearly illustrating the fallout moving away from
the Marshall Islands. The air-mass trajectories were
reconstructed using the NOAA-HYSPLIT model and
archival meteorological data. Using the HYSPLIT model
one can determine whether air masses likely moved
towards or away from the inhabited atolls of the Marshall
Islands. In the absence of actual measurements, this type
of analysis helped confirm our conclusions on which
tests likely deposited fallout on the inhabited atolls.

Marshall Islands, estimated TOAsvaried from as short as

6 h for Bravo to about 80 h for Nectar and Zuni.
Conversely, at Majuro in the southern Marshall Islands,
TOAsvaried from about 36 h for King to about 140 h for
Yoke. The shortest TOA wasabout4 h for Bravo fallout
at Ailinginae and the longest TOA was about 170 h (>1
wk) for Union fallout at Kili Island.
The TOAestimates tend to be conservative in that,

as illustrated by both auto-monitor and gummed film
data, the fallout at some atolls often continued over many
hours or days. Since gummed film data represented the
deposition for a 24-h interval, our estimates of the initial
TOAs are uncertain to about +12 h if only based on
those data. Although the initial TOA can be determined
more precisely from the auto-monitor data which recorded data every 6 h, in many cases, the fallout arrived
over a period of many hours to many days with no
specific peak. For other tests, the TOA could only be
crudely estimated based on whether fallout occurred
prior to an airplane survey or between repeated surveys.

Fallout time-of-arrival (TOA)

Estimates were made of the TOAoffallout for each
test at each atoll. These estimates, expressed in hours
post-detonation, are presented in Table 6. Times of
arrival varied considerably depending on the distance of

For tests with little actual data, the fallout and TOA were

estimated from the HYSPLIT model. As discussed in a
companion paper in this issue (Moroz et al. 2010), the

each atoll from the test site, wind speed, and wind

160° E

180°

160° W

Trajectory Start Heights
13km

15km

30°N

a

17km

@

19-24km

oO

+ 30°N

Enewetak:

Atoll

10°N

4 10°N

0

500

1000km

-———_——_

0

10°SF

wt

120°E

140°E

500

1000 mi

= 10°S
y4

is‘

160° E

:

te.
cri

2 eR
!

180°

160° W

Fig. 1. Upper level air mass trajectories moving W and NE away from Bikini Atoll (i.e., away from Marshall Islands,
shown as gray shaded area) duringthe first 39 h following the Poplar detonation as derived from archival meteorological
data and simulated with the NOAA-HYSPLIT model for the day of the Hardtack I Poplar test (7/12/58, 9.3 Mt explosive
yield). Note: trajectory symbols represent 3-h intervals.

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