Levels of 129I in coastal Pacific Ocean waters from southern California, 2011–2020 and the legacy of Fukushima

Abstract

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident released radionuclides directly into the ocean as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. This material has been transported across the Pacific Ocean and detected in the northeastern Pacific. We began a surface ocean 129 I monitoring program a few months after this disaster in June 2011, with samples from Scripps Pier, La Jolla, California, USA, with the expectation that surface currents originating off the east coast of Japan could eventually carry radionuclides to the La Jolla site. We could not identify a significant distinct signal that can be traced to Fukushima from the record from 2011-2020. We have however recorded a systematic seasonal 129 I time series record that appears to be due to surface circulation variations along the California coast, or perhaps other unexplained effects. We have reported on some of these effects previously, where we summarized results up to 2018. Since then, we have analyzed additional samples obtained during our sampling program for 2018–2020 from Scripps and also report other results collected during 2015–2016 from Newport Beach, CA, which had not been reported. These results support and expand on the previously published dataset.

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