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Has anyone done tests to see how the radioactive water and other contaminants have affected the pacific as a whole? how about the fish stock near japan? http:/

Has anyone done tests to see how the radioactive water and other contaminants have affected the pacific as a whole? how about the fish stock near japan? http://www.grida.no/images/series/vg-climate/large/32.jpg http://www.grida.no/images/series/vg-climate/large/32.jpg

akiselev 13y ago
It's extremely difficult to do such a study because the entire system is just so complex and there's no way to control for many of the variables. There have, however, been limited studies about bioaccumulation of tritium in phytoplankton and how it can move up the food chain [1]. As another poster said, tritium decays by beta radiation which isn't necessarily harmful but if it accumulates in the food chain, it might be dangerous (just like heavy metals and fish, for example). Tritium's half life is about 12 years so its not inconceivable. It's a different environment but you can probably draw some conclusions about the impact/spread of radioactive particles by looking at Chernobyl. Edit: [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967
toomuchtodo 13y ago
Does this mean we have to start equipping undersea seismic sensors and surface buoys with geiger counters? :(
- Bjoern 13y ago
  The dilution of the radioactive content by the ocean is probably high. Overall the risk is low for significant contamination due to the overall ocean volume. The issues are so-called hot-spots which cause certain fish to be extremely radioactive and streams causing concentrations of radioactive materials highly contaminating only certain regions and fish. That being said, there are so many pollutants in the oceans that I'm confused why people are not more outraged about ocean pollution. Vice Documentary about garbage streams. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41rO7mL6zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41rO7mL6zM Finally, its certainly not acceptable to have on-going ocean pollution, which is probably happening in Fukushima Daiichi.
VLM 13y ago
One interesting problem with "stuff" near Japan is according to western coverage, the only thing that happened was a nuclear accident. However what actually happened was a huge disaster. So right off the coast lets say around 100K cars were destroyed, and the average car has a twenty gallons of liq petrochems like gasoline, used motor oil, and all the various hydraulic and coolant fluids... all floating in coastal water now. Its like a live retro experiment of what if junkyards and the like were totally unregulated for awhile. There was a time when you'd just dump that stuff in a river instead of proper disposal and recycling, and we've got an interesting live example of what happens if we try it again... So is the two headed fish because of modest radio contamination, or because it grew up next to a puddle of used motor oil, or the warehouse full of insecticide that washed into the ocean, or...
hannibal5 13y ago
It all boils down to bioaccumulation. Radioactive stuff that just floats around is diluted fast into nothingness. Chernobyl was bad, but most of the fallout landed on forests and lakes that are not significant source of human food chain (mushrooms, fish in lake and animals in the forest still have traces left). Fukushima did not blow stuff into the atmosphere, most of the leak is from water leaking to the soil and to the sea. Almost everything living in the sea is important part of the human food chain.
- Bjoern 13y ago
  > Fukushima did not blow stuff into the atmosphere Well, that is actually not right. During the accident radioactive water vapor and other gases were released into the atmosphere due to the explosions. Its correct though that, most of it was washed out by rain quickly being diminished into the ground water or carried away onto the ocean. More importantly a significant portion of the radioactive water seeped into the groundwater, which will have unknown effects in the future.
  - hannibal5 13y ago
    You seem to be right. More iodine-131, caesium-134 was released as water wapour. Still, most of it will ended over ocean or very close to sea.
jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
I don't have the specific links on this computer (sorry) but one of the major oceanographic research institutes published a fairly detailed report of their own measurements last year. The general flavor of the report is that the pacific as a whole is in no danger. Despite the toxicity of what's been released, the pacific is very, very, big. They expressed concern for local waters near the plant, but weren't able to study that as freely due to Tepco and the Japanese government. Accumulation of isotopes in predator species is still a very real concern.

akiselev 13y ago

It's extremely difficult to do such a study because the entire system is just so complex and there's no way to control for many of the variables. There have, however, been limited studies about bioaccumulation of tritium in phytoplankton and how it can move up the food chain [1]. As another poster said, tritium decays by beta radiation which isn't necessarily harmful but if it accumulates in the food chain, it might be dangerous (just like heavy metals and fish, for example). Tritium's half life is about 12 years so its not inconceivable. It's a different environment but you can probably draw some conclusions about the impact/spread of radioactive particles by looking at Chernobyl. Edit: [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967

toomuchtodo 13y ago

Does this mean we have to start equipping undersea seismic sensors and surface buoys with geiger counters? :(

Bjoern 13y ago
The dilution of the radioactive content by the ocean is probably high. Overall the risk is low for significant contamination due to the overall ocean volume. The issues are so-called hot-spots which cause certain fish to be extremely radioactive and streams causing concentrations of radioactive materials highly contaminating only certain regions and fish. That being said, there are so many pollutants in the oceans that I'm confused why people are not more outraged about ocean pollution. Vice Documentary about garbage streams. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41rO7mL6zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41rO7mL6zM Finally, its certainly not acceptable to have on-going ocean pollution, which is probably happening in Fukushima Daiichi.

VLM 13y ago

One interesting problem with "stuff" near Japan is according to western coverage, the only thing that happened was a nuclear accident. However what actually happened was a huge disaster. So right off the coast lets say around 100K cars were destroyed, and the average car has a twenty gallons of liq petrochems like gasoline, used motor oil, and all the various hydraulic and coolant fluids... all floating in coastal water now. Its like a live retro experiment of what if junkyards and the like were totally unregulated for awhile. There was a time when you'd just dump that stuff in a river instead of proper disposal and recycling, and we've got an interesting live example of what happens if we try it again... So is the two headed fish because of modest radio contamination, or because it grew up next to a puddle of used motor oil, or the warehouse full of insecticide that washed into the ocean, or...

hannibal5 13y ago

It all boils down to bioaccumulation. Radioactive stuff that just floats around is diluted fast into nothingness. Chernobyl was bad, but most of the fallout landed on forests and lakes that are not significant source of human food chain (mushrooms, fish in lake and animals in the forest still have traces left). Fukushima did not blow stuff into the atmosphere, most of the leak is from water leaking to the soil and to the sea. Almost everything living in the sea is important part of the human food chain.

Bjoern 13y ago
> Fukushima did not blow stuff into the atmosphere Well, that is actually not right. During the accident radioactive water vapor and other gases were released into the atmosphere due to the explosions. Its correct though that, most of it was washed out by rain quickly being diminished into the ground water or carried away onto the ocean. More importantly a significant portion of the radioactive water seeped into the groundwater, which will have unknown effects in the future.
- hannibal5 13y ago
  You seem to be right. More iodine-131, caesium-134 was released as water wapour. Still, most of it will ended over ocean or very close to sea.

jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago

I don't have the specific links on this computer (sorry) but one of the major oceanographic research institutes published a fairly detailed report of their own measurements last year. The general flavor of the report is that the pacific as a whole is in no danger. Despite the toxicity of what's been released, the pacific is very, very, big. They expressed concern for local waters near the plant, but weren't able to study that as freely due to Tepco and the Japanese government. Accumulation of isotopes in predator species is still a very real concern.