Atmospheric Transport Patterns from the Kola Nuclear Reactors Alexander Mahura University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA University of Washington, Seattle, USA Kola Science Center, Apatity, Russia Robert Andres University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, USA Daniel Jaffe University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA University of Washington-Bothell, USA Northern Studies Working Paper cerum, Centre for Regional Science No. 24:2001 se-90187 Umeå Sweden The Project “Nuclear Problems, Risk Perceptions of, and Societal Responses to, Nuclear Waste in the Barents Region” - an Acknowledgement Since the late eighties, CERUM has developed research with a focus on the shaping of and development within the Barents Region. Two spe- cific features have characterised this research. First of all our ambition has been to develop research projects in close collaboration with inter- national and especially Russian researchers. This has materialised as an exchange of researchers at conferences both in Sweden and in Russia. Secondly, our view has been that the Barents region must be analysed by researchers that represent a broad set of competences. Especially our ambition is to develop a deeper and more integrated collaboration between researchers from social sciences and arts on one hand and nat- ural sciences on the other. With the Swedish Board for Civil Emergency Preparedness (ÖCB) as the main finacier, CERUM has for a couple of years developed re- search within the project “Nuclear Problems, Risks Perceptions of, and Social Responses to, Nuclear Waste in the Barents Region”. This report is produced within the afore-mentioned project. The project deals with vulnerability as a response to the latent security ques- tions associated with the existence of nuclear power and nuclear waste in the Barents region. Clearly there is within the project a large scoop for an analysis with its roots in natural sciences of the size and disper- sion of various types of waste from the region. The project also has pro- duced a set of such papers. Those papers raise questions that immedi- ately lead to other papers and a discussion with its roots in social sci- ences, of civil emergency preparedness in a broad and spatially delim- ited sense as well as a discussion of the need for an enlarged concept of safety. The pattern of spatial risk dispersion, which in this case not halts at the national borders, and the associated construction of governance in the Barents region also imply that trans-border negotiation, conflict, and cooperation become key words in the discourse. Gösta Weissglas Lars Westin Project leader Director of CERUM 2 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1.2.1 Geographic relationship of KNPP 5 Figure 1.3.1 Position of the Arctic front 6 Figure 2.1.1 Geographical regions of interest and model grid domain 8 Figure 2.2.1 Examples of trajectories showing consistent air flow 9 Figure 2.2.2 Examples of complex trajectories 1 Figure 2.3.1 5-day isentropic forward trajectories originated over the KNR region during 11 1992 Figure 2.3.2 Cluster mean trajectories or transport pathways from KNR during 1992 Figure 3.1.1 Monthly variations in the average transport time (in days) from the KNR region 14 to geographical regions based on the forward trajectories during 1991-1995 Figure 3.1.2 Monthly variations in the average percentage of trajectories originated over the KNR region at lower altitudes within the boundary layer and reached the geographical regions during 1991-1995 Figure 3.2.1 Atmospheric transport pathways (cluster mean trajectories) from the KNR 15 region based on the forward trajectories during 1991-1995 Figure 3.3.1 Airflow probability field within the boundary layer for the trajectories, originated over the KNR region during 1991-1995 (isolines are shown every 10%) Figure 3.4.1 Precipitation factor probability field for the boundary layer based on the relative humidity fields for the trajectories, originated over the KNR region during 1991-1995 (isolines are shown every 5%) Figure 3.5.1 Fast transport probability field within the boundary layer for the trajectories, originated over the KNR region during April of 1991-1995 (isolines are shown every 10%) Figure A1 Atmospheric transport pathways from KNR during spring Figure A2 Atmospheric transport pathways from KNR during summer Figure A3 Atmospheric transport pathways from KNR during fall Figure A4 Atmospheric transport pathways from KNR during winter Figure B1 Spring airflow probability field within the boundary layer Figure B2 Summer airflow probability field within the boundary layer Figure B3 Fall airflow probability field within the boundary layer Figure B4 Winter airflow probability field within the boundary layer Figure C1 Spring precipitation probability field for the surface-1.5 km asl layer Figure C2 Summer precipitation probability field for the surface-1.5 km asl layer Figure C3 Fall precipitation probability field for the surface-1.5 km asl layer Figure C4 Winter precipitation probability field for the surface-1.5 km asl layer Figure D1 Spring fast transport probability field within the boundary layer Figure D2 Summer fast transport probability field within the boundary Figure D3 Fall fast transport probability field within the boundary layer Figure D4 Winter fast transport probability field within the boundary layer Table 1.3.1 Seasonal average meteorological variables (Meteorological station at Zasheek) Table 3.1.1 Transport summary from KNR region to geographical regions 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report has a purpose to show a methodology and possibilities for future studies of the possible impact to different geographical areas of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region from the numerous nuclear risk objects on the Kola Peninsula. The Kola Peninsula (Murmansk region, Russia), being the nearest neighbor to the Nordic countries, plays a considerable role in the airborne pollution problem in the Barents Euro-Arctic region. There are two main types of airborne pollution sources in this area. From one side, it is an airborne pollution from largest Cu-Ni metallurgical companies of the Kola Peninsula. From another side, there is a potential risk of radioactive pollution under hypothetical accidents at numerous objects of the radiation risk in the region. It is known that among the reactors of the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the 15 RBMK and 6 VVER-440/230 are reactors of the greatest concern. Beside that, the high number of naval and commercial nuclear reactors on and along the Kola Peninsula in the Northwest Russia exceeds by far the concentration in any other region of the world. There are more than 170 nuclear reactors in operation, and about 140 reactors waiting to be decommissioned. Finally, the Russian government plans additional reactor units, despite public opposition and limited financial resources. The Kola nuclear power plant (KNPP) on the Kola Peninsula is the closest Russian nuclear power plant to the Scandinavian countries. It is located just 100 km from the Finnish and 200 km from the Norwegian border. Because this plant uses an older VVER-440/230 design reactors, has problems with storage and disposal of existing radioactive wastes and it was built in an area of the medium seismic activity, there are concerns about potential accidents at this facility and a subsequent release of radionuclides. For these reasons, we have examined atmospheric transport patterns, airflow, precipitation factor, fast transport probabilities, and possible impact from the plant’s reactors based on 1991- 1995 meteorological data sets on several geographical regions -- Scandinavian, European, Central Former Soviet Union (FSU), and Taymyr -- using an isentropic trajectory model, cluster analysis, and probability fields techniques. We found, that highly populated regions, Scandinavian and Central FSU, are at the greatest risk in comparison with the European region. Radionuclide transport to the Central FSU region can occur in one day, but averages 2.7 days with 45% of the cases of the free troposphere transport. To the Scandinavian region it can occur in 0.5 days, but averages 1.2 days with most of occurrences (up to 70%) resulting from the transport in the boundary layer. Since rapid transport (1 day) could bring relatively undiluted air parcels containing significant concentrations of radionuclides, these events were considered in greater detail by analyzing probabilistic fields. 4 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction Background An accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (51°17' N, 30°15' E), located in Ukraine (30 km south of the Belorussian border), was the most severe in the nuclear industry. The emissions continued from 26 April until 6 May 1986. This accident caused the rapid death of 31 plant employees and brought the evacuation of 116,000 people within a few weeks. About half a million workers and four million others have been exposed, to some extent, to radiation doses resulting from the Chernobyl accident (Bouville, 1995). During the weeks after the initial explosion, radioactive material was observed almost everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere due to long- range atmospheric transport. The main sources of radioactive pollution in northern Russia are similar to those in many western countries (Bridges and Bridges, 1995; Nuclear Wastes in the Arctic, 1995). The most common source of anthropogenic radioactivity has been the global fallout from nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere (Aarkrog, 1994; Bocharov et al., 1995). The ecosystems may contain relatively high levels of radioactive contamination. Beside global fallout they have received significant amounts of radioactivity from a number of other sources. These sources were studied in detail by Baklanov et al., 1993; Nilsen and Bohmer, 1994; Bergman et al., 1996; Nilsen et al., 1996. Nuclear power plants (NPPs) are one of these sources and they have a rank of relatively high radiological consequences in terms of doses to total population and influence on environment, if substantial release occurs (Baklanov et al., 1996).