Fukushima is still a disaster for Japan. They will be cleaning that s**t up for the next 50 years. But radiation from Fukushima is NOT a problem for the West Coast or the Greater Pacific and will never be.

You can find additional information about current Fukushima radiation monitoring efforts at Our Radioactive Ocean, Fukushima Inform and Kelp Watch.

*Cesium-134, with its relatively short half-life of two years, is the tell-tale marker that scientists use to distinguish Fukushima radiation from radiation put into the ocean from nuclear bomb testing in the 50’s and 60’s.

SOURCES:

WHOI news release: Fukushima Radioactivity measured off the West Coast.

The post Fukushima radiation detected 100 miles from California Coast. Still not harmful. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

What does this mean for the west coast right now? In the immortal words of Ken Buesseler himself…

“The reason why we see such low levels of radiation in these samples is because the plume is not here yet. But it’s coming. And we’ll actually be able to see its arrival,” Buesseler says. “That baseline data is critical.

The plume is predicted to reach the US West Coast in April 2014 and it will be “detectable but not harmful.” Samples taken off the coast of Vancouver Island in June 2013  show the plume has reached it, but the observed concentrations are at most 1 Bq/m3. In other words, 7400 times less than the EPA’s maximum concentrations for drinking water so the levels are not harmful for humans or sea life.

But it’s still important to know when the plume reaches the West Coast so scientists can understand how contaminants spread throughout the ocean. Luckily, awesome folks like Bing Gong from Point Reyes, CA had the foresight to procure enough funds to test the water for the next three years. High fives all around!

I also want to encourage people to donate and become a part of this project. It’s a great way to not only help science out, but there is the opportunity for you to do some science as well. This is especially true for locations that aren’t being sampled yet such as Alaska (Juneau, Seward and Dutch Harbor I’m talking to you!).  If you haven’t already, check ourradioactiveoceans.org for more information on radioactivity in the ocean and how you can help.

SOURCES:

Quotes from WHOI press release published January 28th http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/our-radioactive-ocean-website-update-release

https://www.pices.int/publications/presentations/PICES-2013/2013-MEQ/MEQ-1700-Smith.pdf

The post First results from crowdfunded study shows radioactive seawater from Fukushima has NOT reached the US coast first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Is Fukushima radiation going to fry the West Coast of the U.S.?!?  No.

It MUST be causing all those sea stars to melt…right? Wrong.

Am I ever going to eat delicious fish from the Pacific ever again?? Yes. Fear not.

Is a giant, radioactive monster going to emerge from the ocean depths and unleash a reign of terror on mankind?!?! Er…Not likely….but even I have to admit…the timing is oddly suspicious on that one.

Because the incident was the largest accidental release of radioactive materials in the ocean ever, these concerns are not unwarranted. We should be asking questions about human and ocean health but not ignoring evidence when confronted with it.  However, what I find hugely disconcerting is the one question that is hardly ever asked:

What about the marine life right off the coast of Japan? How did the largest accidental release of radioactive materials in the ocean impact them? 

As always, DSN is here to help and shed light on the question you forgot have yet to ask.

Which marine organisms were most affected?

As with many oceanic ‘pollutants’ and your Facebook relationship status, “it’s complicated” is the honest answer here.  There are numerous factors to just how radioactive our watery friends became after the Fukushima catastrophe went down. Distance from point source, is the most obvious. The closest to the power plant, the higher the dose. The farther away…well you know what they say… “dilution is the solution to pollution.”

However, less intuitive forces are also at work. For instance, depth, whether or not you are a demersal (bottom-dwelling) or pelagic (open ocean) critter, how mobile you are, your life stage, and whether you’re a fish, invertebrate, mammal, or seaweed could make a drastic difference on the level of radionuclides you would be susceptible to. Heck, even which radionuclide we are talking about makes a difference (because of the science currently available, I have stuck with Cs-134, -137, and I-131 for the sake of this discussion).

When it comes to radiation, mammals are the most sensitive. Hence why people care so much about…well…people. They will be affected first and this is why the regulatory levels (100 Bq/kg wet) are set at what they are.  This falls under the idea…you protect the most sensitive thing…you protect everything else (an idea not tested in all scenarios). After that, you have the fish and then the invertebrates. Most invertebrates are actually relatively hardy regarding radiation…comes with the territory of living with NATURAL radiation for so many thousands of years.  Not far behind, are the seaweeds. Seaweeds even accumulate some radioactive isotopes like Iodine-131 to higher levels than the seawater.  Accumulated iodine normally acts as an antioxidant, thus they like it cause it saves them from certain oxidation reactions that can be detrimental to their poor seaweedy cells. However, people don’t particularly like it when seaweed accumulates radionuclides…cause people eat lots of seaweed in Japan.

So how much was marine life influenced by Fukushima radiation? The graph above that looks uncannily like paint ball practice tells us the Cesium concentrations in both pelagic (blue team) and demersal (red team) species. The little black line shows the shift in Japan’s regulatory limit.* Though critters that play in the water column may have received a higher dose at first, that quickly faded. What may catch more of your attention is that red team has piss poor accuracy on the paint ball field has levels that remain relatively constant over time. That is because they live closer to the sediments, where all pollutants go to hang out with other pollutants. Thus, these critters continue to be dosed with radiation and will continue to for decades to come (Don’t forget half life of Cs-137 is about 30 years).

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, fish can metabolize Cesium relatively quickly (and I-131’s half life is so short that it also rapidly leaves the body). Though fish can accumulate Cesium to about 100 times seawater levels, if they leave a contaminated area the loss rate is pretty high.

To restate, pollutant exposure is a complicated process (no matter which kind of pollutant you are talking about). Variability is the name of the game, but now you know who potentially got the shorter end of the nuclear disaster schtick.

How much radiation can marine critters actually take? 

For the most part, radiation exposure in marine organisms causes the same damaging effects as radiation in humans. At high doses, fatality occurs. At low doses, carcinogenic maladies and reductions in reproductive capabilities can occur. However, as see in the graph above, it takes orders of magnitude MORE radiation to cause such injuries in marine life than it does in humans. However, we still do not know much on how radiation exposure influences non-human biota at really low doses over longer periods of time, if at all. But groups like UNSCEAR and ERICA are focused on assessing the radiological risk to non-human biota.

How did Fukushima fallout influence local Japanese marine life?

Answer: Not too much. With a conservative approach, models estimated total dose rates much lower than baseline safe levels (10·Ÿ10^-3 Gy/day) that would cause population consequences at even chronic exposure conditions for marine life. Doses were estimated at 1.2·Ÿ10^-5 Gy/day for pelagic fish, 2.9Ÿ·10^-5 Gy/day for molluscs, and 4.1·Ÿ10^-5 Gy/day for algae. Don’t forget that these are averages, and there is variability in these numbers based on some of the factors we have already discussed.

Again we caution that more information is needed on how radiation exposure influences marine life and some organisms/species/life stages (like them little fishy babies) and the differences in susceptibility among them. Of course, the biggest issue is the synergy of multiple stressors. What happens when you start to compile global stressors (rising pH, temperatures, extreme water pollution) AND a nuclear meltdown? Organisms that are already dealing with an onslaught of human-derived stressors might be at higher risk from the influence of Fukushima.

*Note* Japanese regulatory limits were some of the strictest in the world before the disaster and were reduced to ensure strictest standards when it comes to monitoring radionuclides in food supply. To see how this level was calculated and why, here is an explanation. These levels are set to minimize human consumption of contaminated seafood and thus exceeding them will result in a fishery closure.

References:

Buesseler, K.O. 2012. Fishing for answers off of Fukushima. Science 338, 480.

Buesseler, K.O. et al. 2013. Fukushima-derived radionuclides in the ocean and biota off Japan. PNAS 109 (16), 5984-5988.

Hinton, T.G. et al. 2004. Effects of radiation on the environment: A need to question old paradigms and enhance collaboration among radiation biologists and radiation ecologists. Radiation Research 162 (3), 332-338.

Kryshev, I.I. et al. 2012. Dynamics of radiation exposure to marine biota in the area of the Fukushima NPP in March-May 2011. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 114, 157-161.

Schiermeier, Q. 2011. Radiation release will hit marine life. Nature 472, 145-146.

United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. 1996. Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation. http://www.unscear.org

Wada, T. et al. 2013. Effects of the nuclear disaster on marine products in Fukushima. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 124, 246-254.

The post The question you should have asked about Fukushima, but probably didn’t. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

• Fukushima radiation leak
• Starfish wasting disease
• the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
• California oarfish “mortality event”
• Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy
• the “great Pacific garbage patch”
• the current Atlantic dolphin UME
• the collapse of various fisheries, exemplified by the Long Island Sound lobster fishery

So what’s wrong with debating these fascinating topics?  Well nothing, as long as the discussions are based on reason, information and, frankly, reality.  Also nothing, as long as there actually IS a debate, which isn’t always the case.   Here are some examples of the sort of reasoning that we have seen in comments, emails and tweets about the above examples:

• Starfish wasting disease. Starfish are melting. Radiation leaked into the ocean at Fukushima. Therefore Fukushima caused the starfish melting.
• Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.  Hurricane Sandy happened. Then dolphins began dying on the Atlantic coast. Therefore Sandy caused the Atlantic dolphin UME.
• The “great Pacific garbage patch”.  There’s a giant patch of garbage out there.  If we could just sort of scoop it up, that would be good.  Someone should invent something to do that.
• The Long Island Sound lobster fishery. “They” sprayed insecticides in the tri-state area to control mosquito populations.  Around the same time, lobsters died.  Therefore insecticide spraying killed lobsters.

Among these sorts of comments and communications dwell many types of formal and informal logical fallacies, that is, flawed reasoning.  A common one is Arguing from Ignorance which is not meant as an insult, but is defined as “assuming that a claim is true because it has not been proven false”; this can be seen as a facet of Arguing from Silence, where a cause is assumed based on absence of evidence.  For example, the LIS lobster fishers made an erroneous connection between insecticide spraying and lobster mortality back in 1999 because there wasn’t another explanation at the time and it seemed reasonable (to them). A big problem is that you can make this sort of logical fallacy in the blink of an eye – it’s basically intellectual laziness – whereas the sorts of controlled and rigorous studies required to build a good theory for any environmental disaster can take a really long time.  In other words, fallacy is instantaneous but truth works at the speed of science, which is, unfortunately, often pretty gastropodal.  Not enough time has yet elapsed to reveal the true cause(s) of the starfish melting syndrome, for example, but in the case of the LIS lobsters, science showed pretty unequivocally that the mortality resulted from a multifactorial suite of environmental problems, particularly chronically elevated temperatures and persistent hypoxia, probably exacerbated by some fishery-related factors.  Pesticides didn’t enter into it.  And yet, if you ask the average Joe on the street in Hicksville, they are more than likely to say that the pesticides killed the lobsters in ’99, because that message – wrong as it was – was widely disseminated in the heat of the crisis, whereas the truth came out quietly in scientific papers and agency reports years later when the crash had long since faded from The News.

A related problem is that in the time between when people first propose a fallacious cause, and when the true cause is revealed through reason and research, the fallacious one can become ingrained like an Alabama tick.  Once people get an idea in their head, even if it’s wrong, getting them to let go of it can be bloody hard.  Indeed, there’s a term for this; it’s called “the Backfire Effect”: when confronting someone with data contrary to their position in an argument, counter-intuitively results in their digging their heels in even more.  In this phenomenon, the media has to accept a sizable chunk of responsibility because, as the lobster example shows, the deadline-driven world of media agencies is more aligned with the rapid pace of the logical fallacy than with the slow and deliberate pace of scientific research.  Many media outlets are often quite happy to give airtime to ideas that haven’t yet been critically evaluated, especially if there isn’t much other information to report (yet) about a given crisis.  I’m pretty sure some folks I know are going to totally jump down my throat for saying that.  They will doubtless point out that journalists are the defenders of the One Truth, but this is my editorial soapbox, so go ahead fellas.  Besides, John Stewart calls CNN out for this sort of stuff practically every night, and if it’s good enough for him…

Perhaps the most common flawed thinking we see in the comments and back channels of #DeepSN is the false correlation, or causality inferred from coincidence; formally, this is called post hoc ergo propter hoc.  This was the fallacy that Jenny McCarthy committed when she decided that the MMR vaccine had caused her sons autism, simply because the latter followed the former closely in time.  Well yeah, 100% of car accident victims ate breakfast that day too, but you don’t see people ditching their cheerios do you?  McCarthy’s willingness to shout her ignorance from the rooftops (and Oprah’s couch) has done untold damage to the public health, especially as it now turns out that her son didn’t have autism anyway.  The point is, logically flawed thinking of this kind is not trivial or a private deficiency; it can cause real harm to the thinker and to others. The recent kerfuffle on Chris Mah’s excellent post debunking a link between the Fukushima disaster and the starfish melting syndrome on the US Pacific coast is a perfect example of post hoc thinking.  Fukushima happened -> Starfish wasting happened -> therefore Fukushima caused starfish wasting.  As Chris pointed out, though, starfish wasting started before the Fukushima event, so even before any research has been done on the true cause of the syndrome, we can comfortably discount Fukushima radiation as the primary contributor.  If, as an academic exercise you apply post hoc thinking in light of Chris’s point, flipping the first two premises in the above syllogism, you could just as easily argue that Starfish wasting caused the Fukushima event!  That’s obviously absurd on its face and just serves to reveal the fallacy for what it is.  It may be more plausible that the radiation caused the starfish melting rather than the other way around, but that doesn’t make it any less fallacious.  Another aspect of the post hoc phenomenon is that it doesn’t seem to happen in the good direction, only the bad.  Fukushima must have caused the starfish melting syndrome, but no one is jumping up and down saying that the record numbers of whales in California waters this year are a pleasant and unexpected side effect of Fukushima, even though it’s happening at the exact same time as the starfish problem.

One last example of flawed thinking that inhibits reasoned debate about ocean science issues is false pattern recognition, or simply “leaping to conclusions”.  The 2013 case of “oarfish mortality” is a great example.  Last year precisely two oarfish washed up in California, within a couple of weeks of each other.  Oarfish are rare, so when two of them washed up in quick succession, many folks were quick to assume that the two events were related and that we were at the start of an oarfish mortality event.  Of course, it was just a statistical anomaly; a rare event that nonetheless happens inevitably if you wait long enough.  TV and radio media are some of the worst offenders when it comes to leaping to conclusions this way (print media outlets tend to be a bit more rigorous).  One of the ways they justify this is through posing a question.  Rather than framing the piece as “Oarfish mass mortality underway”, which would require fact checking, they go with “Are we at the start of an oarfish mortality event?” and support it with a few quotes from bystanders asked to wax hypothetical about their experiences.  By framing the story as a question or hypothetical in this way, journalists abdicate somewhat the responsibility to substantiate the claims made.  It may appear to editors to be a harmless practice that stimulates conversation around an interesting topic, but it often causes a significant amount of work for those who make it their business to try to inject a bit of science into the public conversation.  This is especially the case when the truth (statistical anomaly) is a lot less interesting than the alternative, that 30ft oarfish are going to start washing up all over the place!

There are a whole slew of other related phenomena collectively called “cognitive biases” (of which the Backfire Effect is one example), that come into play during heated debates about events like Sandy, Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima.  I am not even going to scratch the surface on those here, because this post is long enough already and we hope to have some experts on these phenomena comment here soon. In the meantime, perhaps one way we can help move the conversations in more helpful directions would be a checklist that people can consult to check their logic.  After all, awareness of a problem is half the solution, amIright?  Scientists often have some form of this kind of thinking ingrained as a part of their training, but not always, so it can’t hurt for all of us to think consciously about our thinking, me included.   To that end, I offer the following, non-comprehensive list of things to consider before you hit “Reply” on that cleverly crafted response.  If you have additional suggestions I invite you to add them in the comments.

• Am I seeing a pattern that could just be a statistical rarity, and leaping to a conclusion?
• Am I connecting two events causally, because they occurred close together in space or time?
• Am I inferring a cause in the absence of evidence for any other explanation?
• Am I thinking inductively “It must have been such and such…”
• Am I framing the issue as a false dichotomy (debating only two possible causes, when there may be many others).  In other words, am I framing the issue as an argument with two sides, rather than a lively discussion about complex issues?
• Am I attacking my “opponent” and/or his/her credentials, rather than his/her argument?
• Am I arguing something simply because other/many people believe it to be true?
• Am I ignoring data because I don’t want to lose face by conceding that I may be wrong?
• Am I cherry picking data that support my position (a cognitive bias)

Deep Sea News seeks to raise awareness through scrutiny, not negativity.  By that we mean that we try our best to stick to the facts and then deliver them in our usual style of “reverent irreverence“.  For those who favour the ad hominem attack: we’re not paid to blog and we don’t all work at the same place (in fact, we all work at different places, all educational or non-profit).   We’re just 7 scientists who love what we do and want to share that passion with everyone else.  We relish vigorous discussion about the subject we all love, marine science, so with a bit of luck and a bit of effort, I hope we can improve the conversation by keeping it reasoned and scientific, so that DSN stays fun and informative, and doesn’t become a hive for trolls and a battlefield for flame wars.

The post No, but in all seriousness… first appeared on Deep Sea News.

1. My favorite magazine growing up, Popular Mechanics, has a very nice write up about understanding radiation counts from radiation safety expert Andrew Karam. Andrew Karam has over 30 years of experience in health physics (radiation safety), beginning with an eight-year stint as a mechanical operator and radiation safety specialist in the Navy. Since then, Karam has worked for the State of Ohio, Ohio State University, the University of Rochester and as a private consultant. Favorite Quote: “In the areas of Japan I visited, radiation dose rates were elevated to about three to four times typical natural radiation dose rates (which are about .1 mrem per hour), but nowhere near as high as natural radiation levels I’ve measured in parts of Iran.”
2. Is the west coast being fried by Fukushima radiation? Dr. Andrew Thaler, a marine biologist and chief editor of Southern Fried Science, totally dismantles Michael Snyder’s Activist post 28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima.  Take Home: No and the Snyder article distorts the truth and outright lies to advocate for his position.  Favorite Quote: “The article is a paranoid, poorly reasoned attempt to link the tragedy of the Fukushima disaster to just about every environmental issue facing the US west coast in the last few months.”
3. Are high radiation readings being observed on the west coast of the United States?  No doubt you’ve seen the video of a man in San Francisco, California using a Geiger Counter showing high radiation readings on the beach.  Enter Dan Sythe, the CEO of International Medcom Inc. that develops and produces radiation detection instruments and systems. Dan has a list of impressive credentials on everything Geiger Counter related. At the Geiger Counter Bulletin, he tests the same California sand and compares it to readings from Fukushima. Take Home: The radiation signature in the coastal sands is normal and is not the same as from Fukushima.  Favorite Quote: “The radionuclides are in the NORM class of radioactive substances, not from Fukushima. NORM stands for Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material…If the sand were contaminated by radiation from Fukushima it would show Cesium 137 [it does not].”  Super Favorite Bonus Quote: “The radiation level [in the sand] is elevated, but roughly equivalent to some granite counter top material from Brazil.”
4. Related to the above, Wendy Hopkins an Information Officer of the California Department of Public Health, has made a public statement.  Favorite Quote: “Recent tests show that elevated levels of radiation at Half Moon Bay are due to naturally occurring materials and not radioactivity associated with the Fukushima incident. There is no public health risk at California beaches due to radioactivity related to events at Fukushima.” By the way, Dean Peterson, Director for Environmental Health Services for San Mateo County, also stated that the radiation is due to naturally occurring minerals typically found in coastal geology.
5. Dr. Jay T. Cullen, an Associate Professor of marine chemistry at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, researches the fate of metals that can be toxic and/or essential nutrients for organisms in the marine environment. He has an excellent set of articles at the Daily Kos including this primer and this one. Question: Is radiation, in the form of Cesium, reaching the west coast?  Favorite Quote/Take Home: “Most recent measurements show that Fukushima derived Cs has reached the west coast as of June 2013 by ocean transport but that concentrations of Cs continue to be well below levels thought to pose environmental or public health threats.”  Question: Is cesium being found in fish? Favorite Quote/Take Home: “Like fish sampled thus far in the north Pacific the contribution of Cs to overall exposure of human consumers to radiation by consuming these fish is very small.“
6. Are babies in the U.S. dying as a direct result of Fukushima radiation?  Michael Moyer is a writer and editor at Scientific American and writes about these concerns (Post 1, Post 2).  The first post deals with an unpublished study where “researchers” cherry picked data to fit their agenda.  This group revised their analyses and now have a “published study” that is so fundamentally flawed it’s not worth mentioning. Take Home: Babies in the U.S. are not dying from Fukushima radiation.  Favorite Quotes: “A check [of the data] reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths…picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics.” But my all time favorite quote is this baby that comes across as a stern gentlemanly slap to the face, “No attempt is made at providing systematic error estimates, or error estimates of any kind. No attempt is made to catalog any biases that may have crept into the analysis, though a cursory look finds biases a-plenty (the authors are anti-nuclear activists unaffiliated with any research institution). The analysis assumes that the plume arrived on U.S. shores, spread everywhere, instantly, and started killing people immediately. It assumes that the “excess” deaths after March 20 are a real signal, not just a statistical aberration, and that every one of them is due to Fukushima radiation.”
7. Skeptoid is an award winning blog and podcast dedicated to everything anti-science.  The show is produced and hosted by Brian Dunning, a computer scientist who turned toward public engagement.  If you want the unbiased and most critical assessment of any issue tune into them. A writer for Skeptoid, Michael Rothechild, has been providing background on the people making many of the alarmist claims on the impacts of Fukushima.  Favorite Quote 1: “The piece was written by Gary Stamper, who runs “Collapse into Consciousness,” a website devoted to surviving the supposed coming collapse of society.” Michael has a series of posts that tackle the pseudoscientific claims being made about radioactive fish, whether we will all face a cesium soaked death, and a whole list of common claims about Fukushima. Make sure you read the last one especially.  Favorite Quote 2: “Obviously, the situation at Fukushima is distressing, and not at all something that should be shrugged off. But compounding it with scaremongering about our food supply does nothing productive for anyone. But I urge you to make that decision based on sound scientific research and testable claims, not hysterical screeds backed by supposition and fear.”
8. The list wouldn’t be complete without including Deep-Sea News posts. Dr. Kim Martini, a physical oceanographer, wrote an excellent post about Fukushima radiation that separates fact from fiction. Question: Is everyone on the west coast swathed in Fukushima radiation? Take Home: No. Favorite Quote: “This is not a map of Fukushima Radiation spreading across the Pacific. This is a map of the estimated maximum wave heights of the Japanese Tohuku Tsunami by modelers at NOAA.”
9. Dr. Miriam Goldstein, a biological oceanographer now working on policy in D.C., wrote about recent studies of Fukushima radiation in fish.  The title states the take home message: radiation levels were detectable but not hazardous. Favorite Quote: “So teeny fish in the waters off Japan just a few months after Fukushima had such low levels of radioactivity that they are considered safe to eat under Japanese law. And of this radioactivity, only 10-30% of the total radioactivity found in marine life was attributable to the Fukushima discharges – the rest was from naturally occurring radionuclides… tuna caught off California contains ten times LESS radiation than even the strictest food limit. What’s the theme? DETECTABLE but not HAZARDOUS”
10. Dr. Chris Mah is a researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and one of the world’s leading experts on starfish and echinoderms in general.  Chris’s post here at DSN debunks the claim that the starfish dying on the west coast have anything to do with the Fukushima incident. Favorite Quote: “If there were waves of Fukushima radiation pouring onto the coast-and “melting” all the starfish as some folks would suggest, EVERYTHING would be dead. Not just the sea stars. Note also that all the divers involved in these surveys have reported NO ill effects.”
11. I wrote about whether dead and irradiated animals were littering the Pacific floor. I am a deep-sea biologist and over the last several years my research has focused on the biodiversity of deep-sea communities off the California coast.  Like many others, I am also working toward understanding how deep-sea life will respond to increased anthropogenic impacts, particularly climate change.  This resulted in a high profile publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. My favorite quote of myself: “Nowhere does the paper or the press release mention radiation or Fukushima. Nilch, negatory, nadda, never. But this is not good enough for staff writer Ethan Hunt and other outlets that continue to recycle this story.”
12. I finish the list by quoting Michael Rothechild again. “I believe the anxiety about the meltdown and its aftermath comes from a mix of negativity toward nuclear power, hostility toward plant operators TEPCO (which is well-deserved in most cases), a lack of knowledge about basic science, distrust of experts (who are seen as dishonest shills) and the common habit of sharing social content that’s driven by strong negative emotions – often without understanding it, and sometimes without even reading it.”

I understand why people are scared and concerned.  I grew up in the age of imminent nuclear destruction (does anyone else remember doing nuclear attack drills in schools that were very similar to tornado drills?).  My generation and the baby boomers before us were steeped in a pot of nuclear fear and skepticism. As Kim stated in her post, “While there are terrible things that happened around the Fukushima Power Plant in Japan; Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast aren’t in any danger.  These posts were meant to scare people (and possibly written by terrified authors). They did just that, but there is a severe lack of facts in these posts.”  I caution everyone to thoroughly evaluate all claims and look at the biases and expertise of those making them.

The post All The Best, Scientifically Verified, Information on Fukushima Impacts first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Recently we at Deep-Sea News have tried to combat misinformation about the presence of high levels of Fukushima radiation and its impact on marine organisms on the west coast of the United States.  After doing thorough research, reading the scientific literature, and consulting with experts and colleagues, we have found no evidence of either.  In the comments of those posts and on Twitter, readers have asked us about the “evidence” of dead marine life covering 98% of ocean floor in the Pacific as directly attributed to Fukushima radiation.  After some searching I found the main “news” article that is referenced.

The Pacific Ocean appears to be dying, according to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever been in the 24 years that monitoring has taken place, a phenomenon that the data suggests is a direct consequence of nuclear fallout from Fukushima.

Before I discuss this “evidence” further, I want to provide a little background.  I am a deep-sea biologist and over the last several years my research has focused on the biodiversity of deep-sea communities off the California coast.  Like many others, I am also working toward understanding how deep-sea life will respond to increased anthropogenic impacts particularly climate change.  This resulted in a high profile publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.  I mention this background because 1. It explains why I view myself as an expert to comment on this and 2. it explains why I was confounded for a moment when I thought I had missed a paper in a journal I have published in, on a geographic region I study, and on a topic close to my own research.  And to boot from researchers at institution (MBARI) I was formerly employed with.

The reason I am unfamiliar with a study providing evidence of  “Dead sea creatures cover 98 percent of ocean floor off California coast; up from 1 percent before Fukushima” is because no such study exists.  Here are the details of the actual study.

Ken Smith’s group at MBARI has monitored a deep-sea abyssal site called Station M off the California coast continuously since 1989 (24 years).  Their work has lead to many major findings.  A majority of deep-sea animals are completely reliant on the sinking of food from the surface, i.e. marine snow. One of the most important findings from Smith and colleagues’ work is that rhythm of deep-sea life is intrinsically linked to the production of phytoplankton at the oceans surface. Thus El Nino/La Nina cycles and other such meteorological/oceanic events leave a deep-sea signature.  Ken’s research has been paradigm shifting for deep-sea research.  We have moved from a belief of a stable and climate-buffered view of the deep sea to one of a dynamic system intimately related to seasonal, annual, and decadal changes in surface production and ocean currents.

This group’s newest paper

Smith, K. L., H. A. Ruhl, M. Kahru, C. L. Huffard, and A. D. Sherman. (2013). Deep ocean communities impacted by changing climate over 24 y in the abyssal northeast Pacific Ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1315447110.

reports findings that large and episodic pulses of marine snow occur.  These large blizzards are met by hungry deep-sea animals that quickly gobble the meal.  The amount of food these blizzards deliver are huge equaling years, if not decades, of normal marine snow.  But the amounts and frequency of both normal marine snow and the blizzards are changing.

From 2003 to 2012 the amount of phytoplankton production, fodder for marine snow, was higher than years prior.  After 2006, the frequency of spikes in marine snow, i.e. blizzards, also increased.   In the summer of 2011, the first of three dramatic blizzards occurred.  During this event a large number of diatoms bloomed at the surface and sank rapidly to the seafloor.  The second event in the spring/early summer of 2012, was triggered by a major bloom of gelatinous salps. As mentioned in the press release of the paper, “These salps became so abundant that they blocked the seawater intake of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, located on the California coast east of Station M.”  When these salps died, as they do after a bloom, they carpeted the seafloor.  In September 2012 another plankton bloom occurred and this combined with fecal pellets from salps (who hungrily munched on the algae) again carpeted the floor with marine snow.  In addition the greatest amounts of marine snow and consumption by deep-sea life (as measured by respiration rates) occurred in the last two years of the time series.

What caused these recent changes in marine snow?

From the paper,

The abyssal area surrounding Station M is influenced by the California Current, which is experiencing increased wind stress, resulting in increased upwelling of nutrient-rich subsurface waters, contributing to increased primary production. With increasing primary production there has been a corresponding increase in POC flux and detrital aggregate accumulation on the sea floor over the past several years.

And from the press release,

The researchers note that deep-sea feasts may be increasing in frequency off the Central California coast, as well as at some other deep-sea study sites around the world. Over the last decade, the waters off Central California have seen stronger winds, which bring more nutrients, such as nitrate, to the ocean surface. These nutrients act like fertilizer, triggering blooms of algae, which, in turn, sometimes feed blooms of salps. The fallout from all of this increased productivity eventually ends up on the seafloor.

Nowhere does the paper or the press release mention radiation or Fukushima. Nilch, negatory, nadda, never.

But this is not good enough for staff writer Ethan Hunt and others outlets that continue to recycle this story.

Though the researchers involved with the work have been reluctant to pin Fukushima as a potential cause — National Geographic, which covered the study recently, did not even mention Fukushima — the timing of the discovery suggests that Fukushima is, perhaps, the cause.

MBARI today also issued a press release addressing the “several misleading stories [that] have been in circulation on the internet.”  The press release points out the obvious.

1. MBARI research actually showed evidence that there were MORE algae and salps living in California surface waters during 2011 and 2012 than during the previous 20 years.
2. Salps are small gelatinous animals that eat single-celled algae. They are known to experience large blooms in their populations. Large populations of salps have been periodically documented in California waters since at least the 1950s.
3. Blooms of gelatinous animals (including salps) and single-celled algae are a common occurrence off the California Coast. They come and go, running their course when they use up their food and nutrients.
4. Animals and algae that live in the surface waters eventually die. If they are not eaten in surface waters then they sink to the deep sea. This is the main food source for deep-sea animal and microbe communities.
5. Soon after the salp bloom and die-off at the surface in 2012, the deep seafloor at the researchers’ study site was littered with dead salps. This was observed at one location, and salps were the only dead animals observed in large numbers.
6. There is no indication that any of the events in this study were associated with the Fukushima nuclear accident.

I will also note the Fukushima disaster occurred in March 2011, five years after the researches begin to see changes in surface production.   To reiterate the statements points, there is evidence of more life recently in California waters. The supposed “die off” is a common feature of any bloom of short-lived invertebrates. The “die off” was experienced at one location and with one species.  The entire Pacific seafloor is not littered with dying organisms.  I would also point out that these massive food falls of marine invertebrates are a common occurrence. For example, in 2002 a massive deposition of jellyfish was seen in the deep Arabian Sea.

As I write this post on this cold Saturday morning, my attitude matches.  I have wanted to write about this paper for a while here at DSN.  And I’m sorry I did not.  I shoudn’t be defending great science against propaganda and poor journalism.  I should be writing about how this paper answers a major question about the deep sea.  Previous studies have noted that the energy requirements of deep-sea animals could not be met by normal and minimal marine snow.  Research over the last decade or so set out to determine how this deficit is made up.  Smith and colleagues’ work solves this riddle.  Deep-sea animals simply wait for a sporadic feast.  Smith’s work suggests this is likely linked to climatic events.

If anything the paper is a cautionary tale of climate change not radiation.

The post Is the sea floor littered with dead animals due to radiation? No. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

This invited post is authored by Chris Mah, a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History researcher.    Chris is one of the world’s leading experts on starfish and echinoderms in general.  He created and writes for Echinoblog, a one stop reading place for everything echinoderm. You can find him at Twitter at @echinoblog.

In September 2013, I broke the story about a mass sunflower starfish (Pycnopodia helianthoides) die-off in British Columbia. This developed into further accounts of Starfish Wasting ‘disease’ which is now recognized as “Starfish Wasting Syndrome” (because the nature of the causative agent is unknown) and since been reported from California and now Washington state.

The “disease” causes white lesions and tissue necrosis (death and decomposition), eventually resulting in arm loss and overall body collapse (the “wasting” part of the disease’s name). The disease has been observed in multiple starfish species but seems to have been noticed most heavily in sunflower starfish (Pycnopodia helianthoides) and ochre stars (Pisaster ochraceus).

Some have become concerned that there is a direct influence from Fukushima. Much of this seems unlikely.  Deep-Sea News (among many other sources) have presented excellent reviews of data that can help the rational person make sense from some of the confusing deluge of misinformation.

Here, I continue this theme. Addressing a concern that has been brought up by many. But really, three simple observations discount any direct relationship….

1. Starfish Wasting Disease/Syndrome (SWD/SWS) pre-Dates Fukushima by 3 to 15 years. This is probably the most self-evident of reasons. One of the earliest accounts of starfish wasting disease was recorded from Southern California (Channel Islands) in 1997 (pdf).  The account of SWS in British Columbia was first documented by Bates et al. in 2009, and their data was collected in 2008.  Fukushima? March 2011.
2. Starfish Wasting Syndrome Occurs on the East Coast as well as the Pacific. Many of the accounts alleging a Fukushima connection to Starfish Wasting Syndrome forget that there are also accounts of SWS on the east coast of the United States affecting the asteriid Asterias rubens. There is no evidence (or apparent mechanism) for Fukushima radiation to have reached the east coast and therefore the Fukushima idea is again not supported.
3. No other life in these regions seems to have been affected. If we watch the original British Columbia Pycnopodia die-off videos, and the later Washington state die-off vidoes, one cannot help but notice that other than the starfish, EVERYTHING else remains alive. Fish. Seaweed, encrusting animals. etc.

the WA video

Viewing ANY of the pictures or videos from other accounts shows that only the sea stars are affected.  If there were waves of Fukushima radiation pouring onto the coast-and “melting” all the starfish as some folks would suggest, EVERYTHING would be dead. Not just the sea stars. Note also that all the divers involved in these surveys have reported NO ill effects.

Unfortunately, we have no data on the actual agent that causes SWS. Within the grand realm of possibility there is always a (slim?) possibility there is a connection with Fukushima, but nothing we’ve seen gives us any reason to think that.

More Likely Reasons?

Speculation has suggested bacterial or viral sources. But invertebrate diseases can be complicated. The disease only seems to affect sea stars. Nothing else.  This implies a biological cause with a very specific relationship. Possibly a bacteria or virus. But just as possibly some other type of infection resulting from a protist or fungi?

It also seems possible that it could be a disease similar to coral bleaching, where subcuticular bacteria of sea stars (as documented here)  might be affected adversely. Or perhaps a combination? In conjunction with some environmental change, such as water temperature?  The original series of papers by Amanda Bates indicated there was an association of the diseae with water temperature.

Our study of this event has just begun. Ongoing data collection and research have started. We shall see where it takes us…

The post Three Reasons Why Fukushima Radiation Has Nothing to Do with Starfish Wasting Syndrome first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Rather unfortunately, it has also led to some wild speculation on the widespread dangers of Fukushima radiation on the internet. Posts with titles like “Holy Fukushima – Radiation From Japan Is Already Killing North Americans” and “28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima” (which Southern Fried Science has already throughly debunked ) keep popping up on my facebook feed from well-meaning friends.

I’m here to tell you that these posts are just plain garbage. While there are terrible things that happened around the Fukushima Power Plant in Japan; Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast aren’t in any danger.  These posts were meant to scare people (and possibly written by terrified authors). They did just that, but there is a severe lack of facts in these posts. Which is why I am here to give you the facts, and nothing but the facts.

WHAT WAS RELEASED INTO THE OCEAN AT FUKUSHIMA?

The radioactive rods in the Fukushima power plant are usually cooled by seawater [CORRECTION: they are usually cooled by freshwater. As a last ditch emergency effort at Fukushima seawater was used as a coolant.]. The double whammy of an earthquake and a tsunami pretty much released a s**tstorm of badness: the power went out, meltdown started and eventually the radioactive cooling seawater started leaking (and was also intentionally released) into the ocean. Radioactive isotopes were also released into the air and were absorbed by the ocean when they rained down upon it. These two pathways introduced mostly Iodine-131, Cesium-137, and Cesium-134, but also a sprinkling of Tellurium, Uranium and Strontium to the area surrounding the power plant.

There aren’t great estimates of how much of each of these isotopes were released into the ocean since TEPCO, the company that owns the power plant hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with information, but the current estimates are around 538,100 terabecquerels (TBq) which is above Three-Mile Island levels, but below Chernobyl levels. And as it turns out, they recently found contaminated groundwater has also started leaking into the sea. TEPCO, the gift that keeps on giving.

WHAT’S A BEQUEREL? WHAT’S A SIEVERT?

Units of Radiation are confusing. When you start reading the news/literature/blogs, there are what seems like a billion different units to explain radiation. But fear not, I’ve listed them below and what they mean (SI units first).

Becquerel[Bq] or Curie[Ci]: radiation emitted from a radioactive material  (1 Ci = 3.7 × 10¹⁰ Bq)

Gray [Gy] or Rad[rad]: radiation absorbed by another material (1Gy = 100 rad)

Sieverts[Sv]* or “roentgen equivalent in man”[rem]: how badly radiation will damage biological tissue (1 Sv = 100 rem)

You can convert from Grays and Rads to Rem and Sieverts, but you have to know what kind of radiation it is. For example alpha radiation from naturally occurring Polonium-210 is more damaging to biological tissues than gamma radiation from Cesium-137. Even if you absorbed the same number of Grays from Cesium or Polonium, you would still effectively receive more damaging radiation from Polonium because the number of Sieverts is higher for Polonium than Cesium. And kids, Sieverts and Seavers  are both dangerous to your health but please don’t confuse them.

WHAT’S CESIUM-137?

Cesium-137 is product of nuclear fission. Before us humans, there was no Cesium-137 on earth. But then we started blowing stuff up with nuclear bombs and VOILA!, there are now detectable, but safe, levels of Cesium-137 in all the world oceans.

WHAT DO THE MAPS OF FUKUSHIMA RADIATION IN THE PACIFIC REALLY TELL US?

There are a bunch of maps being thrown around on the internet as evidence that we are all going to die from Fukushima radiation. I’m going to dissect them here. Apologies in advance for dose of snark in this section because some of these claims are just god awful. Spoiler: radiation probably has reached the West Coast but it’s not dangerous.

MAP OF TERROR #1: The Rays of Radioactive Death!

MAP OF TERROR #2: EHRMAGHAD radioactive SPAGHATTA NADLES attack Hawaii!

I mean I guess this is a bit better. At least this map used an ocean model that actually predicts where radioactive particles will be pushed around by surface ocean currents. But it still gets a BIG FAT FAIL. The engineering company that put this image/piece of crap out there couldn’t even be bothered to put a legend on the map. Their disclaimer says “THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION.” Then what do the colors mean?

MAP OF TERROR #3: THE BLOB! 

It’s true, oceanographic models have shown that radiation from Fukushima has probably already hit Aleutians and Hawaiian Island chain, and should reach the California Coast by Fall 2014 [Behrens et al. 2012]. The map above is showing the spread of Cesium-137 from the Fukushima reactor would look like right now, I mean radiation is apparently EVERYWHERE! But what is missing from most of the discussion of these maps is what  the colors ACTUALLY mean.

We shall now seek guidance from the little box in the upper right hand corner of the map called the legend**.  The colors show how much less radioactive the the decrease in the radioactive concentrations of Cesium-137 isotopes have become since being emitted from Fukushima. For example, the red areas indicate the Fukushima Cesium-137 is now more than 10,000 times less radioactive concentrated than when released. The California Coast, more than a million times less. The punchline is that overall concentrations of radioactive isotopes and therefore radioactivity in the Pacific will increase from Pre-Fukushima levels, but it will be way less than what was seen in coastal Japan and definitely not enough to be harmful elsewhere (we’ll get to more of that later).

** As Eve Rickert has thoughtfully pointed out, my description of the image is a little confusing. I’ve added corrections in blue to clarify.

HOW MUCH RADIATION WILL REACH THE WEST COAST?

Practically, what does ten thousand or a million times less radiation mean? It means that these models estimate the West Coast and the Aleutians will see radiation levels anywhere from 1-20 Bq/m³,while Hawaiian Islands could see up to 30 Bq/m³ [Behrens et al. 2012, Nakano et al. 2012,  Rossi et al. 2013 ].

I could write a small novel explaining why the numbers differ between the models. For those that love the details, here’s a laundry list of those differences: the amount of radiation initially injected into the ocean, the length of time it took to inject the radiation (slowly seeping or one big dump), the physics embedded in the model, the background ocean state, the number of 20-count shrimp per square mile (Just kidding!), atmospheric forcing, inter-annual and multi-decadal variability and even whether atmospheric deposition was incorporated into the model.

Like I said before, the West Coast will probably not see more than 20 Bq/m³ of radiation. Compare these values to the map of background radiation of Cesium-137 in the ocean before Fukushima (from 1990), it’s only 4 Bq/m³ in the Pacific. Radiation will increase in the Pacific, but it’s at most 10 times higher than previous levels, not thousands. Although looking at this map I would probably stop eating Baltic Herring fish oil pills and Black Sea Caviar (that radiation is from Chernobyl) before ending the consumption of  fish from the Pacific Ocean.

WILL THE RADIATION REACHING THE WEST COAST BE DANGEROUS?

No it will not be dangerous. Even within 300 km of Fukushima, the additional radiation that was introduced by the Cesium-137 fallout is still well below the background radiation levels from naturally occurring radioisotopes. By the time those radioactive atoms make their way to the West Coast it will be even more diluted and therefore not dangerous at all.

It’s not even dangerous to swim off the coast of Fukushima. Buessler et al. figured out how much radiation damage you would get if you doggie paddled about Fukushima (Yes, science has given us radioactive models of human swimmers). It was less than 0.03% of the daily radiation an average Japanese resident receives. Tiny! Hell, the radiation was so small even immediately after the accident scientists did not wear any special equipment to handle the seawater samples (but they did wear detectors just in case). If you want danger, you’re better off licking the dial on an old-school glow in the dark watch.

CAN I EAT FISH FROM THE PACIFIC?

For the most part the answer is YES. Some fisheries in Japan are still closed because of radioactive contamination. Bottom fish are especially prone to contamination because the fallout collects on the seafloor where they live. Contaminated fish shouldn’t be making it to your grocery store, but I can’t guarantee that so if you are worried just eat fish from somewhere other than Japan.

Fish from the rest of the Pacific are safe. To say it mildly, most fish are kinda lazy. They really don’t travel that far so when you catch a Mahi Mahi off the coast of Hawaii its only going to be as contaminated as the water there, which isn’t very much.Hyperactive fish, such as tuna may be more radioactive than local lazy fish because they migrate so far. As Miriam pointed out in this post, there is a detectable increase of radiation in tuna because they were at one point closer to Fukushima, but the levels are not hazardous.

To alleviate fears that you may be glowing due to ingestion too many visits to your local sushi joint, Fischer et al. figured out exactly how much damaging radiation you would receive from eating a tower of tuna rolls. Seriously. Science is just that awesome. Supermarket tuna hunters would receive 0.9 μSv of radiation, while the outdoors subsistence tuna hunter would receive 4.7 μSv. These values are about the same or a little less than the amount a person receives from natural sources.

To put 0.9 μSv of radiation in perspective check out this awesome graph of radiation by xkcd. You’ll get the same amount of radiation by eating 9 bananas. Monkeys might be doomed, but you are not.

I EAT PACIFIC FISH AND SO CAN YOU!

I hope this list of facts has answered most of your questions and convinced you the Pacific and its inhabitants will not be fried by radiation from Fukushima. I certainly feel safe eating sustainable seafood from the Pacific and so should you. If you are still unsure, please feel free to ask questions in the comments section below.

UPDATE #1: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM GROUNDWATER LEAKS

There’s been a lot of discussion in the comments about the contribution from the groundwater leaks. I did some homework and here’s what I came up with. (Also thanks to everyone for the interesting discussions in the comments!)

The ground water leaks are in fact problematic, but what has been released into the ocean is MUCH less than the initial release (although I admit the groundwater itself has extremely high radiation levels).  The estimates from Jota Kanda are that 0.3 TBq per month (10¹² Bq) of contaminated groundwater is leaking into the ocean, which has added another 9.6 TBq of radiation into the sea at most.  The initial releases were about 16.2 PBq (10¹⁵ Bq), about 1500 times more radiation. With this in mind, the additional radioactivity leak from ground water isn’t a relatively large addition to the ocean.

The models by Behrens and Rossi used initial source functions of 10 PBq and 22 PBq, which is on par with the most recent estimates.  Since their models used a much higher source function, that says to me that this relatively smaller input from groundwater still won’t raise the radioactivity to dangerous levels on the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii.  Recent observations around Hawaii by Kamenik et al. also suggest that the models may have even overestimated the amount of radiation that hit Hawaii, which is good news.

But there are caveats to this information as well. The leaking groundwater contains strontium and tritium which are more problematic than Cesium-137. But it sounds like strontium accumulates in bones and is only a problem if you eat small fish with the bones in, like sardines (and it will only affect sardines caught near Japan since they don’t travel far). I suspect there might be some precedent for understanding the dangers of tritium in seawater from the 20th century nuclear testing in atolls, but I really don’t know. There is also 95 TBq of radioactive cesium is in the sediment around Fukushima, which is still super problematic for bottom dwelling fish and therefore local Japanese Fisheries. Lastly, another source is terrestrial runoff. These numbers haven’t been quantified but they are probably minor because they contain a fraction of the total deposition from atmospheric fallout, which itself was a fraction of what was released into the ocean.

So even with the new groundwater leaks, the available evidence still tells me I can eat fish from the West Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska.

http://www.nature.com/news/ocean-still-suffering-from-fukushima-fallout-1.11823

http://www.biogeosciences.net/10/6045/2013/bg-10-6045-2013.pdf

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/11/fukushima-fallout-not-affecting-u-s-caught-fish/

UPDATE #2: ANOTHER GREAT RESOURCE FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF FUKUSHIMA RADIATION

For more in depth articles about radiation from Fukushima in the ocean you should definitely check out some of Marine Chemist’s Posts at Daily Kos. Written by Jay T. Cullen, a Marine Chemist at the University of Victoria, the posts walk you through the most current research on Fukushima Radiation from a variety of sources. I especially recommend his most recent post on Update on Fukushima Radionuclides in the North Pacific and Off the West Coast of North America, were he discusses the recent detection of Fukushima radiation off the coast of Canada. The most recent observations from June 2013 shows the spread of Cesium-137 was on par with the predictions by Rossi et al., but the concentrations are safe and lower than predicted.

[DISCLAIMER: The creators of the NOAA tsunami map work in my building. I secretly fangirl squeal when I walk past their offices. I recently had coffee with Joke F. Lübbecke, who also works in my building. It was caffeinated.]

*Confusingly, oceanographers also co-opted the acronym Sv for Sverdrups their unit for volume transport. 1 Sverdrup = 1 Sv = one million cubic metres per second = 400 Olympic swimming pools just passed your house in one second.

SOURCES:

Behrens, Erik, et al. “Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of 137Cs released into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima.” Environmental Research Letters 7.3 (2012): 034004.

Buesseler, Ken O., et al. “Fukushima-derived radionuclides in the ocean and biota off Japan.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.16 (2012): 5984-5988.

Fisher, Nicholas S., et al. “Evaluation of radiation doses and associated risk from the Fukushima nuclear accident to marine biota and human consumers of seafood.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2013).

Nakano, Masanao, and Pavel P. Povinec. “Long-term simulations of the 137 Cs dispersion from the Fukushima accident in the world ocean.” Journal of environmental radioactivity 111 (2012): 109-115.

Rossi, Vincent, et al. “Multi-decadal projections of surface and interior pathways of the Fukushima Cesium-137 radioactive plume.” Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers (2013).

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution FAQ: Radiation from Fukushima

Explained: rad, rem, sieverts, becquerelsl. A guide to terminology about radiation exposure

The post True facts about Ocean Radiation and the Fukushima Disaster first appeared on Deep Sea News.

There’s nothing like a terrifying headline to point out how differently scientists and the public see the world. On Monday, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) found that Pacific bluefin tuna had carried detectable radiation from the Fukushima meltdown across the Pacific, and the headline freakouts began. As NPR reporter Richard Harris* pointed out, “What snarky headline writer could resist a story about ‘hot tuna?’ Or how about ‘tuna meltdown?'”

The mere mention of radiation terrifies people – and certainly the Fukushima meltdown was scary. But there’s a big difference between DETECTABLE radiation and HAZARDOUS radiation. The ocean is absolutely filled with detectable radiation, mostly from naturally occurring compounds like potassium-40. There’s human-introduced radiation too – in fact, traces from nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s is used to estimate when deep ocean water last “breathed” at the surface. This doesn’t mean that a watery version of Chernobyl lurks in the deep, just that radioactive materials are sometimes so rare in the world that tiny quantities can be linked to specific happenings.

The same thing is happening with the Fukushima fallout, at least in the ocean (I can’t speak to radiation on land). Fukushima did increase cesium (Cs) isotopes in waters off Japan by 10–1,000 times, but that’s because previous levels were very, very low. So this increase is DETECTABLE but not HAZARDOUS. (Have you started to notice a theme here?) Same thing for the radiation found in zooplankton and marine fishes in June 2011. From another PNAS study by Buessler et al. released this April:

Concentration factors—essentially the degree of radionuclide enrichment in biota relative to ambient water—are used to evaluate the radiological risks associated with seafood consumption and were determined by dividing the radionuclide concentration in biota by the dissolved concentration in surface water. Median values were 44 for 137 Cs and 36 for 134 Cs, comparable to the recommended International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) value of 40 for zooplankton….The median concentration of 137 Cs in micronektonic fish (secondary consumers) was less than that in zooplankton (primary and secondary consumers) and about 150-fold below the Japanese legal limit for fish of 500 Bq·kg−1 wet weight.

So teeny fish in the waters off Japan just a few months after Fukushima had such low levels of radioactivity that they are considered safe to eat under Japanese law. And of this radioactivity, only 10-30% of the total radioactivity found in marine life was attributable to the Fukushima discharges – the rest was from naturally occurring radionuclides, mostly potassium-40.

So this brings us to the new study by Madigan et al. on big fish that used to be in the waters off Japan, but went and swam over to California – the Pacific bluefin tuna. This study examined 15 juvenile bluefin that were spawned in Japan and caught off San Diego, California. Again, the researchers found a DETECTABLE increase – the bluefin tuna caught in 2011 had  total 134+137 Cs concentrations about 10 times higher than bluefin tuna caught in previous years. But was it HAZARDOUS?

The tuna contained 134 Cs at 4.0 ± 1.4 Bq per kg and 137 Cs at 6.3 ± 1.5 Bq per kg. (Here’s an explanation of the Becquerel (Bq), which is the unit of radioactivity.) In contrast, the FAO limit for both cesium radionuclides in human food (including infant food) is 1,000 Bq per kg. The United States FDA limit is 1,200 Bq per kg. Japan’s limit used to be 500 Bq per kg, but they just lowered it to 100 Bq per kg – but the tuna caught off California contains ten times LESS radiation than even the strictest food limit. What’s the theme? DETECTABLE but not HAZARDOUS. As Richard Harris put it:

Really, the result is a testament to how well scientists can now measure tiny amounts of radiation. And of course it’s a remarkable lesson in how wildlife can be traced using accidental “tags” instead of using the labor-intensive plastic ones.

If you are still worried about the cesium from Fukushima, Robert Emery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston says you’d need to eat 2.5 to 4 tons of tuna in a year to get a dose of cesium-137 that exceeds health limits. That’s a lot of sushi.

Now, there are lots of reasons to decline to eat bluefin tuna, which I’ve written about extensively. (Also see Eric Heupel’s great comment on the cost of ranching Pacific bluefin). But really what this story shows is that bluefin are amazing fish that travel vast distances before they’re even grown up! It’s a story about cool science, and there’s no need for it to be muddied by fear.

*Full disclosure: Holly and I (along with Andrew Thaler) met Richard Harris at the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting and lured him into drinking some beers with us. Many squeees were squeeed. Probably this is more of a fun story than a necessary disclosure. Oh, well.

References:

Buesseler, K. O., S. R. Jayne, N. S. Fisher, I. I. Rypina, H. Baumann, Z. Baumann, C. F. Breier, E. M. Douglass, J. George, A. M. Macdonald, H. Miyamoto, J. Nishikawa, S. M. Pike, and S. Yoshida. 2012. Fukushima-Derived Radionuclides in the Ocean and Biota Off Japan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109:5984–5988. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1120794109.

Madigan, D.J., Bauman Z. and Fisher N.S. Pacific bluefin tuna transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online before print May 29, 2012, doi:10.1073/pnas.1204859109.

The post Detectable but not hazardous: radioactive marine life of Fukushima first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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