Frozen Fallout: Nuclear Pollution in the Arctic

During the Fukushima nuclear accident on March 11, 2011, radioactive material was released into terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments. Some of the airborne contaminants were deposited on land areas of Japan through precipitation, while most of the remainder fell over the North Pacific Ocean. Less than 2% of the total fallout was deposited in areas outside Japan.

Specifically, the radionuclides emitted into the atmosphere from the Fukushima nuclear disaster were rapidly dispersed around the northern hemisphere, reaching as far as the Arctic within a couple of weeks of the accident. While the quantities of radioactive particles observed in the atmosphere of the polar regions had minimal environmental or health effects, their detection in areas over 6,000 kilometers away from the emission source highlights the extensive and swift transport of airborne radionuclides across vast distances.

“The Arctic area as defined by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme” by AMAP / CC BY-NC-ND / Edited for clarity.

It is worth mentioning that before the 2011 Fukushima accident, the Arctic atmosphere was virtually free from artificial radionuclides. This is surprising considering the amount of artificial radioactivity transported to the region during the nuclear era that followed World War II.

Indeed, the region has witnessed significant activity during the latter half of the 20^th century. The Soviets conducted over 90 nuclear weapons tests at the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site. In 1961, they detonated “Tsar Bomba,” a 50-megaton thermonuclear aerial bomb, which remains the most powerful atmospheric nuclear test in history. The radioactive contamination of the Arctic region was further exacerbated by numerous accidents involving nuclear-powered vessels, such as icebreakers and submarines, as well as the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Additionally, liquid and atmospheric emissions from British, French, and Russian nuclear fuel reprocessing sites contributed to the nuclear pollution in the region. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union had been dumping nuclear waste and used reactors into the Arctic Ocean. In 1986, the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the largest known release of radioactivity into the environment, extended from Eastern Europe to Sweden and Norway.

Despite decades of abuse and neglect by nuclear powers, the Arctic remains pristine and largely untouched by human civilization and industrial development. A 2015 assessment by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), a working group of the Arctic Council, concluded that levels of anthropogenic radioactivity in the Arctic are generally very low and declining.■

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