2023/07/20 by Sébastien Philippe, Susan Alzner, Philippe, Sébastien +7 · 4 voices
Environmental Science · Health Professions · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Radioactive contamination and transfer #Radioactivity and Radon Measurements #physics.ao-ph #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2307.11040
openalex publication_date 2023/07/20 · arxiv published 2023/07/20 · arxiv updated 2023/07/20 · openalex created_date 2023/07/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
One hundred and one atmospheric nuclear weapon tests were conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the United States, resulting in widespread dispersion of radioactive fallout, and leading to environmental contamination and population exposures. Accurate assessment of the extent of fallout from nuclear weapon tests has been challenging in the United States and elsewhere, due to limited monitoring and data accessibility. Here we address this deficit by combining U.S. government data, high-resolution reanalyzed historical weather fields, and atmospheric transport modeling to reconstruct radionuclide deposition across the contiguous United States, with 10-kilometer spatial and one-hour temporal resolution for five days following detonation, from all 94 atmospheric tests detonated in New Mexico and Nevada with fission yields sufficient to generate mushroom clouds. Our analysis also includes deposition estimates for 10 days following the detonation of Trinity, the first ever nuclear weapon test, on July 16, 1945. We identify locations where radionuclide deposition significantly exceeded levels in areas covered by the U.S. Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). These findings include deposition in all 48 contiguous U.S. states. They provide an opportunity for re-evaluating the public health and environmental implications from atmospheric nuclear testing. Finally, our findings also speak to debates about marking the beginning of the Anthropocene with nuclear weapons fallout. Our deposition estimates indicate that direct fallout from Trinity, a plutonium device, reached Crawford Lake in Canada, the proposed "golden spike" site marking the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch, starting on July 20, 1945.