Environmental Tracers Studies using Anthropogenic Radioisotopes

Since the Nuclear Era in 1940s, substantial amounts of anthropogenic radionuclides have been released into the environment, primarily from the fallout of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, discharges from nuclear installations and releases from nuclear accidents. In recent years, the application of long-lived anthropogenic radionuclides, such as Tc-99, I-129, Cs-135, U-233 and U-236 as tracers in the environment has been increasingly adopted.

Due to their long residence time and unique fingerprint of their isotopic ratios, these tracers are particularly promising in studying long-rang transport and mixing in marine, terrestrial or atmospheric system. For example, anthropogenic radioisotopes released from the European reprocessing plants have been widely used as point-source tracers to track transport pathways and time scales of the Atlantic waters in the Polar region.

This paper aims to provide a holistic overview of our series research on exploring anthropogenic radioisotopes (Tc-99, I-129, Cs-135, U-233 and U-236) in the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, in coupling with models, for source identification, pollutant dynamic and oceanic tracer studies.