title: Modelling dispersal of radioactive contaminants in Arctic waters as a result of potential recovery operations on the dumped submarine K-27.
abstract: Of the wide variety of dumped objects containing radioactive materials in the Arctic seas, the submarine K-27 constitutes a major risk due to the large amount of highly enriched uranium onboard and its location in shallow waters. As the matter of potential operations involving raising of the submarine have entered the public arena, a priori assessment of the contamination in the Arctic marine environment that could result after a possible accident during such operations is a matter of some interest. The dispersion of contaminants within the Arctic has been assessed using a large scale hydrodynamic model for a series of plausible accident scenarios and locations under different oceanographic regimes. Results indicate that, depending primarily on the nature of a release (i.e. instantaneous or continuous), large areas of the Arctic marine environment will exhibit contamination to varying degrees.
authors.affiliation: O.A.Sys - Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH, Tewessteg 4, 20249 Hamburg, Germany; Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karcher
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, PO Box 55, N-1332 Østerås, Norway. Electronic address: ali.hosseini@nrpa.no.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.affiliation: O.A.Sys - Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH, Tewessteg 4, 20249 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schnur
authors.affiliation: O.A.Sys - Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH, Tewessteg 4, 20249 Hamburg, Germany; Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kauker
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, PO Box 55, N-1332 Østerås, Norway.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, PO Box 55, N-1332 Østerås, Norway.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dowdall
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, PO Box 55, N-1332 Østerås, Norway; Centre for Environmental radioactivity (CERAD), Ås, Norway.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Strand
mesh_terms: D001110:Arctic Regions; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D011834:Radiation Monitoring; D012767:Ships; D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014875:Water Pollutants, Radioactive
keywords: Arctic; Dispersion; Marine; Modelling; Nuclear submarine; Radioactive contamination