Stratospheric circulation and the nuclear test controversy

Dr. Graham Mann (Lecturer in Atmospheric Science, Univ. Leeds) In this Frontiers lecture I seek to explain the historical progression in understanding (research frontier) re: the transport and deposition of global fallout from nuclear tests in the Pacific (not health effects)

I will cite heavily from the autobiographical book “An Environmental Odyssey” by Merril Eisenbud who provides fascinating AEC insider accounts from his perspective as Director of the Health and Safety Laboratory (HASL) during the height of the cold war period and the first thermonuclear tests in 1952, 1954 Merril Eisenbud and John Harley (US Atomic Energy Commission Health and Safety Laboratory). Eisenbud & Marley (Science, 1953) Frontier in Environmental Science Research.

Chose this topic as example of period when step-change in understanding Some periods in history when the progression in understanding is particularly fast.

The 1950s was a unique period in the history of the atmosphere in that the stratosphere had highly elevated concentrations of radionuclides released primarily from the US and UK thermonuclear detonations in the Pacific tests (65 years since incident).

US and UK thermonuclear tests in the tropics polluted the global stratosphere, whereas Soviet tests were mostly at mid to higher latitude.

But this talk will focus on the Research Frontier re: global transport of the debris from the very high-yield thermonuclear tests in the Pacific, and how predictions of the recovery of the stratosphere changed between the 2 US National Academy of Science reports on the Biological Effects from Atomic Radiation (BEAR reports) in 1956 and in 1960.

Key to progressing understanding was ongoing programme of stratospheric measurements via high-altitude balloon and aircraft to monitor “in-situ” the long-lived radionuclides.

During the 1958-60 moratorium on testing, no input of radioactivity, air out -- key unknown was the timescale for removal of radioactivity from the previous tests unique tracer for the circulation of air in the stratosphere, and to understand the global variation in fallout measured at ground stations worldwide US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) established in 1946, but began part of its remit to ”develop nuclear weapons on a schedule determined by the president” in Jan 1947.

From the Manhattan Project, after the war, J. Robert Oppenheimer became 1st chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, with selected panel of scientists.

Major change of policy direction in the 1950s after the first Soviet nuclear test, and the huge public investment in the US to develop and test a hydrogen bomb ”super bomb”, whereby two-stage device fusion initiated via first-stage fission trigger.

>1,000 times larger than Hiroshima (Mt yield)  inject radioactive debris into stratosphere

Willard Libby, physical chemist, highly influential research in 1940s on radiocarbon dating winning Nobel Prize in 1960, joined the AEC General Advisory Committee in 1950.

The AEC’s Health and Safety Division, based in New York, was established in 1949 to assess radiation protection and safety, in 1953 renamed the Health And Safety Laboratory (HASL) set up a program of gummed film fallout measurements at US Weather Bureau sites.

Merril Eisenbud appointed first Director of the HASL within the AEC in 1951

In the 1970s, the functions of the AEC were incorporated into the US Department of Energy, with HASL then becoming the DoE Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML)

More info at 1995 Merill Eisenbud interview https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/histories/0456/0456toc.html

Excerpt from Merril Eisenbud autobiography (chapter 5, page 69) “Our studies were classified ’secret’ for a while but before long we were allowed to disseminate the information without restriction. John Harley and I prepared the first summary of our findings, which we published in Science in 1953.”

“This was the first of several articles on the subject. The policy of publishing our data in the open literature was a wise one. It would have been wrong not to do so, and from a practical point of view there was no way in which the presence of radioactivity could be kept secret.”

”By the mid-1950s most research laboratories used sensitive radiation detectors, and many scientists were reporting increased in the background levels, which they realized was due to fallout from the weapons tests.”

”Some of the scientists began to complain to their elected officials who made inquiries to the AEC, and these were referred by Washington to the Health and Safety Laboratory because we had the needed information.”

“Richard Nixon, Senator from California, was among those who asked for information in May 1953, when tests were in progress in Nevada.

”Reports of fallout began to be made even in Europe, and the distinguished physicist Sir John Cockcroft visited me to report his estimate of the amount of bomb debris that had deposited on the Thames Valley from the tests conducted in the fall of 1951. ”The existence of radioactive fallout from the weapons test could not, need not and should not have been kept secret.” Summary of nuclear tests and timeline to 1958 moratorium and 1963 Partial Test Ban

Marvin Soroos (1997) “The Endangered Atmosphere: Preserving a Global Commons” First report of effects of radioactive fallout in the US actually from the 1st ever nuclear test, the test, in the Alamagordo desert in July 1945.

Culmination of the Manhattan Project, to test the device, then detonated above Nagasaki. (Hiroshima the other fission device from )

X-ray film sensitive to very low concentrations of radioactivity (Kodak Eastman company)

Traced to inter-leaving paper from factory in Mid-West manufacturing the packaging material.

During 2nd world war similar contamination of paper previously packing radium instrument dials.

Webb et al. (1949, Physical Review) : (1946 to 1958) First nuclear detonations in the Pacific (Crossroads, , July 1946) (*) https://bikiniatoll.com/Health%20Physics%20paper%20JMN.pdf First post-war detonations were in the US Pacific Island territory of Marshall Islands

162 people who lived on Bikini Atoll were forced to move from their homes to (see e.g. Niedenthal, 2000), see (*)

The 2 Crossroads tests were plutonium fission devices, identical design as Nagasaki bomb.

1st July -- Able air drop (from B-29 aircraft) 25th July – Baker shot 90 feet underwater.

Series co-ordinated by US Joint Chiefs of Staff (only 1 year after the end of the war).

Aim of tests to assess impact of atomic weapon on naval fleet, 37 instrumented by empty ships in target array to demonstrate effects.

Invited audience of journalists, scientists and policy makers observe from 10 n. miles away

Report to JCoS (Baker) a “radioactive mist (**) https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/america-at-the-atomic-crossroads descended on the target fleet larger than

Synthesis of public domain government info., expected” & “ships became radioactive stoves” (Atmospheric 1951-1963, Progressive Management, 2006) Pacific Proving Grounds: Marshall Islands (1946 to 1958)

(Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing 1951-1963, Progressive Management, 2006) Local Fallout from Crossroads Baker shot

1985 GAO report to US senate, revision of radiation exposure estimate for service personnel https://www.gao.gov/assets/150/143931.pdf Local Fallout from Crossroads Baker shot

1985 GAO report to US senate, revision of radiation exposure estimate for service personnel https://www.gao.gov/assets/150/143931.pdf Establishing of the wider US fallout monitoring from

“At the time of the Rochester fallout there was little appreciation of the fact that some of the nuclides present in the bomb debris were capable of being absorbed by plants and animals and could eventually find their way into food and the human body.”

”Such information was available from studies that had been conducted at Hanford and other nuclear centers, but the information was still secret in 1951, and at HASL we didn’t know it existed. What is disappointing in retrospect is that the Division of Biology and Medicine at AEC headquarters had paid so little attention to the matter that there were no advance preparations for fallout measurements.“

”Immediately following the Rochester incident there was interest in this subject, but only because it was a scientific curiosity, not because the fallout should be investigated because of its public health implications.”

”HASL might not have been involved in further fallout studies were it not for the fact that Eastman Kodak needed information to protect its processes and requested the AEC to provide it with advance notice when a cloud from the weapons test was approaching one of their manufacturing facilities.”

”This request was relayed by the AEC Division of Military Applications to Wilbur Kelley, manager of the NYOO, with instructions for HASL to assist Kodak in any way possible.”

Merril Eisenbud et al. “An Environmental Odyssey” (Univ. Washington Press, 1990) Establishing of the wider US fallout monitoring from Nevada Test Site

“By the spring of 1951, preparations were already well underway for tets to be conducted in Nevada that fall in two parts – BUSTER, a series of above ground, and JANGLE, which consisted of a surface, and an underground test.”

”Although the latter two explosions would be relatively small, they could be expected to result in much higher levels of fallout than had the previous Nevada tests.”

“I was invited to Los Alamos for a briefing on the proposed tests and learned that the test organization was planning to monitor the environment only to 200 miles from the bursts.”

“I was of the opinion that intensive monitoring should be extended to at least 500 miles.

“I was told the test organization would be unable to go beyond 200 miles, but that they would support a recommendation to monitor out to 500 miles if HASL or others could develop a feasible plan.”

“I stated HASL would be willing to assume monitoring responsibility for the 200-500 mile annulus around the test site if the military provided us with logistic support. It was agreed that this would be done.”

”We now had two responsibilities during the forthcoming tests. In addition to monitoring the 200-500 mile annulus around the test site, we would establish a network of fixed stations around the world.” Merril Eisenbud et al. “An Environmental Odyssey” (Univ. Washington Press, 1990) US Weather Bureau meteorological sites also measure total fallout from 1951

Gummed film network established by the AEC Health and Safety Laboratory from 1951, stations measuring fallout using gummed paper or simple water tray fallout collectors.

In 1953, 121 stations were measuring fallout via gummed paper measurements (Eisenbud and Harley, Science, 1953).

Deposited dust retained on the gummed paper, samples ashed and measured for total radioactivity (beta-activity) Beck et al. (Health Physics, 1990) n.b. One becquerel is defined as the activity of one radioactive decay per second. http://www.radioactivity.eu.com/site/pages/Radioactivity_Beta.htm Beck et al. (Health Physics, 1990) Machta et al. (1957, J. Meteorol.) Machta et al. (1957, J. Meteorol.) Machta et al. (1957, J. Meteorol.) The 1990 radiation exposure compensation act (RECA)

Established a $100 million fund for compensation for fallout victims --- specifies counties of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona for at least two years between Jan 1951 and Oct 1958

Specific criteria to make a claim --- those working on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) -- up to $75,000 --- those living in specified areas near to the NTS -- up to $50,000

RECA has awarded nearly $2 billion in benefits to more than 30,000 claimants since its inception in 1990.

See Congressional Research Service (Szymendera, May 2017) “The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): Compensation Related to Exposure to Radiation from Atomic Weapons Testing and Uranium Mining” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43956.pdf See Congressional Research Service (Szymendera, May 2017) “The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): Compensation Related to Exposure to Radiation from Atomic Weapons Testing and Uranium Mining” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43956.pdf See Congressional Research Service (Szymendera, May 2017) “The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): Compensation Related to Exposure to Radiation from Atomic Weapons Testing and Uranium Mining” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43956.pdf See Congressional Research Service (Szymendera, May 2017) “The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA): Compensation Related to Exposure to Radiation from Atomic Weapons Testing and Uranium Mining” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43956.pdf 65 years since Castle Bravo fallout incident (1st )

First thermonuclear detonation in 1952.

First detonation Castle Bravo on 1st March 1954 -- much higher-yield detonation (15 Mt equiv. TNT) even than expected -- at that time not understood that the fallout would be distributed so widely

Not really part of this lecture but for more information see YouTube videos

Declassified US government report on Castle Series. (Includes reporting the timing of evacuation of US servicemen and only the day after the Marshallese people on Rongelap (closer to the detonation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfbHwj71k48

Short documentary accounts from scientists and US servicemen in Bravo (Explains background re: unexpected explosivity of deuteride (3 times larger than expected due to Lithium isotope mix )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BddCmfRue0E

One question re: the evacuation of the Marshallese population on Rongelap on March 3rd the day after the March 2nd evacuation of military personnel on Rongerik.

E. J. Jessee (PhD thesis, Montana State Univ. 2013) Kunkle et al. (2013), “CASTLE BRAVO: Fifty years of Legend and Lore”

Section 5.2 Rongelap ”At approximately March 02 12:00M, Task Force Headquarters were advised of the ongoing evacuation of Rongerik. Captain Chrestensen attempted to contact Task Force Command earlier that morning by direct radio transmission from the PBM-5A aircraft over Rongerik, but only a garbled fragment was received and the full transmission had to await relay through Kwajalein. The actual radiation readings made at Rongerik were received at approximately 13:00, this was Task Force Command’s first knowledge of the true severity of the off-site fallout. A special conference was convened aboard the Estes at 13:30 between the commander and the scientific director, the task force radiation safety officer, the staff radiological medical officer, and the TG commanders to consider the possible situation on the inhabited atolls. During this conference, at 13:40, a radio report was received from NYOO Flight ABLE confirming potentially dangerous radiation levels at both Rongelap and Ailinginae. The commander ordered evacuation procedures to begin at once, and directed HASL to immediately execute NYOO flights BAKER and CHARLIE to search for possible contamination elsewhere in the surrounding islands.” Meril Eisenbud “An Environmental Odyssey: People, pollution, politics and the life of a practical scientist”

”After seven hours post-shot, Breslin received a message from the Air Weather Station on the atoll of Rongerik, about 100 miles east of the , informing him that our gamma radiation detection instrument had gone off scale, i.e. the radiation level exceeded 100 milli-Roentgens per hour.”

“He immediately forwarded the information to me and attempted to confirm the Rongerik report with surveillance flights by our aircraft based on Kwajalein.”

”However, for reasons that have never been explained, the Task Force prevented Breslin from using his radio transmission facilities for about thirty hours”. Cronkite et al. (1955, J. Amer. Med Assoc.) Lucky Dragon incident – summary of facts.

Japanese fishing trawler outside the exclusion zone.

Fishermen entirely unaware of test taking place, sun rising in the West.

AEC scientist Merril Eisenbud travelled to Japan to assess the incident. “Unknown to anyone until the fishing vessel returned to its home port of Yaizu in Japan on March 14th , the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands were not the only ones affected by the Bravo Fallout. At the time of the explosion, the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) No. 5, a 100-ton tuna fishing boat with crew of 23, was about 80 miles east of Bikini when the crew saw a bright flash and realised they’d witnessed a nuclear explosion.”

Snow-like fallout from vaporized coral from atoll contaminated boat with very high levels of radioactivity.

Fisherman returned to Japan 13 days later suffering from radiation poisoning. One of the fisherman later died

If boat had been larger the Japanese fisherman would all have been killed.

Other US scientists (e.g. Ralph Lapp, Univ. Chicago) also travelled, overcoming difficulty with initial visa problems.

Ralph Lapp wrote book “The Voyage Of The Lucky Dragon”, re-published by Penguin publishers a year after initial publication, becoming a best seller. I. BACKGROUND OF NUCLEAR TESTING IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS

The United States conducted sixty-seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands in a twelve year period between 1946 and 1958.

Forty-three of those tests occurred on ; the remainder occurred on Bikini Atoll.

The yield of the tests in the Marshall Islands totaled 108 megatons which is equivalent to 7,200 Hiroshima bombs. During the twelve-year nuclear testing program, the Marshall Islands was a United Nations Trust Territory administered by the United States, which had pledged to the United Nations to “protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.”

Radioactive fallout from one of those tests – the , 1954 Bravo shot at Bikini – drifted in the wrong direction and irradiated the 236 inhabitants of Rongelap and Utrok Atolls as well as the crew of a Japanese fishing vessel. Bravo was the largest U.S. nuclear test in history with an force equal to nearly 1,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. In the 1980’s, the peoples of Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and Utrok Atolls and other Marshall Islanders brought lawsuits against the United States in the United States’ courts for property and other damages resulting from the nuclear tests, totaling more than $5 billion. During the litigation, the U.S. and Republic of the Marshall Islands governments signed a treaty known as the Compact of Free Association.

That Compact defines the relationship between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands and included a subsidiary Section 177 Agreement, which established a $150 million Nuclear Fund, income from which was earmarked for the peoples of the four atolls as “a means to address past, present and future consequences of the Nuclear Testing Program....”3

Income was also earmarked to fund a Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which was to be established with “jurisdiction to render final determination upon all claims past, present and future, of the Government, citizens and nationals of the Marshall Islands which are based on, arise out of, or are in any way related to the Nuclear Testing Program....”|

The Section 177 Agreement also provides that it constitutes the full settlement of all claims, “past, present and future,” of Marshall Islanders and their government against the United States arising out of the testing program, and another section provides that all such claims pending in U.S. courts are to be dismissed. https://www.law.du.edu/documents/djilp/The-Marshall-Islands-Nuclear-Claims-Tribunal-Claims-Enewetak-People-Davor-Pevec.pdf Davor Pevec, “The Marshall Islands nuclear claims tribunal: The claims of the Enewetak people“ Denver Journal on International Law and Policy (2008), Univ. Denver. Sturm College of Law, http://djilp.org Thornburgh et al. (2003) Independent examination & assessment of the nuclear claims tribunal for Marshall Islanders. Thornburgh et al. (2003) Independent examination & assessment of the nuclear claims tribunal for Marshall Islanders. Thornburgh et al. (2003) Independent examination & assessment of the nuclear claims tribunal for Marshall Islanders. Boudia “Global Regulation: Controlling and accepting radioactivity risks” (History and Technology, 2007). Libby et al. (1956, Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences) In 1956, the timescale for 90Sr removal initially identified as “storage time” of 10 +/- 5 years.

And that fallout was ”essentially uniform world-wide”.

Initial calculations made in this 1956 PNAS paper followed this simple approach to determine an estimated fallout from the US Pacific tests.

J. Emery Jessee, “Although quite vague in how he arrived at the results, Libby nonetheless maintained that the rate of fall for stratospheric 90Sr was roughly 10% per year, corresponding to a storage time of ten years. This was slow enough, he reasoned, to ’say unequivocally that nuclear weapons tests… do not constitute a health hazard to the human population insofar as radiostrontium is concerned”.

Different estimate for US Weather Bureau scientists and subsequent meeting in May 1956 at the American Meteorological Society conference. Libby et al. (1956, Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences) US National Academy of Sciences BEAR reports in 1956 and 1960 “The Biological Effects from Atomic Radiation” Most information on the nuclear tests remained out of the public domain until Eisenbud & Marley (1953) paper on fallout in Science.

US Weather Bureau had instrumented their weather monitoring sites additionally with simple instrumentation also to measure total fallout established a network established in 1951

Media and public pressure following the Lucky Dragon incident.

In 1956, the US National Academy of Sciences commissioned a panel of scientists to provide the first public report to provide information on all aspects of the effects of fallout from the nuclear tests.

1st report on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation in 1956. Subsequently AEC and DoD atmospheric measurement programmes Reduced estimate re: removal timescale from stratosphere in 1960 report. 1st BEAR report (1956) Scope of the 1956 BEAR report

Detlev Bronk, President of the US National Academy of Sciences appointed

Committees to write agreed synthesis on 6 aspects -- 1) Genetic effects -- 2) Pathologic effects -- 3) Meteorological aspects -- 4) Effects on agriculture and food supplies; -- 5) Disposal and dispersal of radioactive wastes; -- 6) Oceanography and fisheries.

Short summary report produced for the public

Hathi Trust link to electronic copy of 1956 summary report to public, from Univ. Michigan https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002455627

National Academy of Sciences BEAR report (1956) National Academy of Sciences BEAR report (1956) Fascinating research findings from dissertation submitted as part-fulfilment of PhD and supported by NSF Dissertation Improvement grant in 2010.

Later published as chapter 8 “A heightened controversy: Nuclear weapons testing, radioactive tracers and the dynamic stratosphere”, in “Toxic Airs” (Univ. Pittsburgh press, 2014).

E. Jerry Jessee now an Assistant Professor at Univ. Michigan.

Telegadas & List (1969) Telegadas and List (J. Geophys. Res. 1969)

1st BEAR report (1956)

Telegadas and List (JGR, 1969)

Strontium-90 (filled triangles) readily taken up into aerosol particle phase.

Sr-90 decay during the 1959-1961 moratorium on nuclear weapons tests, and after the Partial Test Ban in 1963 is indicator of aerosol particle circulation and residence time.

By contrast C-14 is transported entirely in the air, and the relative decay timescale is indicative of the particle removal timescale vs air residence time.

After Agung in March 1963, the Strontium-90 is decaying faster consistent with our knowledge that the particles will have been sedimenting after their increased reff after Agung. Conclusions

Key to the progression of the research frontier was the prolonged period of high-altitude in-situ measurements of the radionuclides in the stratosphere from AEC high-altitude balloon and DoD U-2 flights

High Altitude Sampling Programme confirmed US Weather Bureau scientists estimates based on 1949 Brewer-Dobson model of circulation, including from early ozonesondes and UK aircraft observations of water vapour.

Even in today’s era of very high capability satellite monitoring, in-situ monitoring of atmospheric composition from ground-based monitoring networks, balloon measurements and aircraft measurements provides ground-truth to test models and provide best “a priori information” and calibration for satellite measurements.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, ”The Open Mind” (1948)

On ”the minimization of coercion and the minimization of secrecy”….

”These two ideals are closely related, the one pointing towards persuasion as the key to political action and the other to free discussion and knowledge as the essential instrument of persuasion…”