The National Data Centre Preparedness Exercise NPE 2019 - Scenario design and expert technical analyses

For detection of non-compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) the global International Monitoring System (IMS) is being built up and nearly complete. The IMS is designed to detect and identify nuclear explosions through their seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide signature. The IMS data are collected, processed to analysis products, and distributed to the signatory states by the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna. The member states themselves may operate National Data Centers (NDC) giving technical advice concerning CTBT verification to their government. NDC Preparedness Exercises (NPE) are regularly performed to practice the verification procedures for the detection of nuclear explosions in the framework of CTBT monitoring. The NPE 2019 scenario was developed in close cooperation between the Italian NDC-RN (ENEA) and the German NDC (BGR). The fictitious state RAETIA announced a reactor incident with release of unspecified radionuclides into the atmosphere. Simulated concentrations of particulate and noble gas isotopes at IMS stations were given to the participants. The task was to check the consistency with the announcement and to serach for waveform events in the potential source region of the radioisotopes. In a next step, the fictitious neighbour state EASTRIA provided further national (synthetic) measurements and requested assistance from IDC with so called Expert Technical Analysis (ETA) about the origin of those traces. The presentation shows aspects of scenario design, event selection, and forward amospheric transport modelling as well as radionuclide and seismological analyses.