Modeling the Dispersion of Radioactive Contaminants in the Arctic Using a Coupled Ice-Ocean Model

摘要

Although several countries dispose of their radioactive waste in the world's oceans, recent revelations by the former Soviet Union concerning disposal of radioactive waste in the shallow water of the Kara Sea have created widespread environmental concern. The Yablokov Report or the White Book is the official Russian documentation of source locations, the time of dumping and the amounts and types of radioactive materials that have been dumped. The report states that low level liquid waste was dumped into the Kara and Barents Seas with lesser amounts dumped into the White Sea and the Baltic. Low to intermediate waste was dumped into the Kara and Barents Seas. The material assumed the most environmentally hazardous was solid radioactive waste with spent nuclear fuel. Nuclear reactors containing the spent nuclear fuel were deposited along the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya island in water with average depths between 20-40 m. Major river/estuary systems located in the Kara and Barents Seas, particularly the larger Ob and Yenisei rivers as well as the smaller Pechora river, are additional sources. The disposal of liquid radioactive waste at the Sellafield site in the Irish Sea has also been suggested as a source of radioactivity for the Barents and the Kara Sea.