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2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Studies on Environmental Radionuclides at Mt. Cimone

Authors : Paolo Cristofanelli, Erika Brattich, Stefano Decesari, Tony Christian Landi, Michela Maione, Davide Putero, Laura Tositti, Paolo Bonasoni

Published in: High-Mountain Atmospheric Research

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Naturally-occurring and artificial radionuclides in PM10 aerosol samples have been systematically measured for more than 12 years at the “O. Vittori” observatory, a baseline station located in a crucial position in the middle of the Mediterranean basin under the influence of relevant atmospheric streamers crossing in this area. The database collected and herein described covers PM10 mass load, 7Be and 210Pb, while sporadic samples showed the occurrence of artificial radionuclides as a result of accidents such as the tsunami induced Fukushima nuclear accident or the Algeciras non-nuclear 137Cs release. The principal scope of radioactivity monitoring at CMN has been the study of Stratosphere to Troposphere Exchange, mainly based on the variation of cosmogenic 7Be, while the availability of 210Pb as well of the mass load of PM10 allowed to extend the efficiency of radiotracer data to the identification of continental aerosol sources such as Saharan dust and the Balkan region. Extensive work has been and is still in progress based on the collected dataset concerning the application of global circulation models which rely on the support of objective tracers for their validation.

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Footnotes
1
World Meteorological Organization.
 
2
The most widely adopted time resolution in airborne radionuclide monitoring is on a weekly basis, which typically smooths out fluctuation due to meteorological variability leading to a remarkable loss of information.
 
3
TSP stands for Total Suspended Particulate, i.e. ambient aerosol samples collected without any size cut-off.
 
4
Until the 60’s it was believed that the main source of tropospheric ozone was the stratosphere.
 
5
The potential vorticity is defined as the specific volume times the scalar product of the absolute vorticity vector and the gradient of potential temperature. It can be described as the absolute circulation of an air parcel that is enclosed between two isentropic surfaces. Within the troposphere, the values of PV are usually low, while PV rapidly increases from the troposphere to the stratosphere due to the significant change in static stability.
 
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Metadata
Title
Studies on Environmental Radionuclides at Mt. Cimone
Authors
Paolo Cristofanelli
Erika Brattich
Stefano Decesari
Tony Christian Landi
Michela Maione
Davide Putero
Laura Tositti
Paolo Bonasoni
Copyright Year
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61127-3_4