Scale‐aware impact modelling for atmospheric releases of radioactive material

Abstract

Since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, the UK has developed the process of Joint Agency Modelling (JAM), which provides advice to government in case of atmospheric releases of radioactive material. The timely deployment of JAM requires a prior estimate of the extent to which impacts could reach. Thus, to develop a fast pre‐calculator for the approximate spatial scales of impacts, we analyse model runs over a range of past meteorological conditions. When applied operationally, we expect this will help decrease the frequency of model runs failing to capture the full extent of impacts, especially for smaller magnitude events.