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Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume: low levels in Aleutians & Southern California by Friday

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jpak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-11 09:45 PM
Original message
Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume: low levels in Aleutians & Southern California by Friday
Edited on Wed Mar-16-11 10:01 PM by jpak
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/science/17plume.html

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in ten days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.

The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.

<more>
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-11 10:48 PM
Response to Original message
1. Well WTF. They said it couldn't possibly affect us, that it couldn't reach
the jet stream.

You know who you are. Shame on you shills.
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bananas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-11 08:36 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. It'll start reaching us today (Thursday)
I posted two frames of the animation in the California forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x39649

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FBaggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-11 09:07 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Want to make a bet?

My bet is that there will be a significantly greater health impact in California from paranoid people overdosing on potassium iodide tablets than from radiation.

What do you think?
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FBaggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-11 09:01 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. Lol... could you point out a few of those posts?
Edited on Thu Mar-17-11 09:07 AM by FBaggins
And then take a look at what the "low" levels are when they get here.

It was never a case of "nothing whatsoever could reach us"... because we can detect incredibly small amounts of radiation that are entirely irrelevant from a public health standpoint.

Just get yourself a list of everyday exposure levels. What you get from a dental xray... what you get from eating a banana. What you get from living in Colorado instead of at sea level. What you get form swimming in the ocean for a couple hours. What you get from eating a banana.

Then compare them to whatever numbers we detect on the West Coast before you distribute any "shame"
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ozdawn Donating Member (2 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-11 12:41 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. low levels?
Low levels? everyday exposure? who gets a dental xray everyday? and eating a banana certainly doesn't contaminate your insides with cesium or plutonium - just 1 isotope of plutonium can kill you!

All the air monitors are telling you is how much radioactive fallout is present in the air but will never tell you if you just inhaled that 1 isotope that is now lodged in your lung and going to cause lung cancer. And all the geiger counters in the world aren't going to prevent that 1 stray isotope from landing on that head of lettuce you just ate for lunch.

So what it all really boils down to is where all the radioactive isotopes actually land and then how much of them you actually come in contact with over time - don't forget half-life for cesium is 60 years while plutonium is 24,000 years so really just a game of Russian roulette every time you eat, drink or breathe this fallout - good luck! They are still monitoring the fallout present all across eastern Europe to this day 25-years later and no wonder cancer just surpassed heart attacks as the world's leading cause of death. Now its America's turn being directly downwind from Japan.
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sam kane Donating Member (326 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-11 01:27 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Exactly, what are the chances of avoiding that one isotope?
Lead gets here from China all the time.
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