Reply #9: maybe it was your post, which cherry-picked the info it chose to extract:

[Hannah Bell]

Forecasts have become irrelevant
Submitted by bandstra on Fri, 2011-05-13 06:16.
The discontinuation of the NILU and EURAD simulations has been generating a lot of interest with folks on this forum, and I am trying to keep up with the various threads. But here's the bottom line:

(1) NILU and EURAD were not actually making measurements of the plume, but performing plume forecasts.

(2) The assumptions that went into the forecasts reflected a worst-case scenario. They assumed huge, constant releases from the reactors.

(3) BRAWM is measuring the plume. If any large releases had occurred after late March, we would have been seeing them in our air measurements. We are hardly able to detect anything anymore in the air.

For example, the 4/24-25 plume that you mentioned never actually happened -- please look at our air measurements for proof.

Therefore, the forecasts have become irrelevant to the actual facts. I think both of those groups probably saw little reason to devote their resources to the forecasts any longer. It is not a cover-up; they have just become irrelevant.

For more info about NILU and EURAD, I've made numerous comments throughout the forum, such as "A note on interpreting EURAD and NILU plume forecasts". Bottom line is that neither website ever meant to be taken as seriously as people took them...

Mark

NILU forecasts didn't reflect reality
Submitted by bandstra on Fri, 2011-05-13 07:04.
All I can do is point you to our air measurements, which include dose measurements for the air -- on the highest spikes in activity, it would still have taken 170 years of breathing that air to receive an equivalent dose 5 millirem.

Also I think you've taken NILU much more seriously than they intended. I'll repeat the NILU disclaimer that was up on their website, from early April through when it was taken offline:

These products are highly uncertain based on limited information for the source terms. Please use with caution and understand that the values are likely to change once we obtain more information on the overall nature of the accident. The products should be considered informational and only indicate 'worst case scenario' releases. From what we've learned recently, it seems releases of this magnitude have not yet occurred. Furthermore, these modeling products are based on global meteorological data, which are too coarse to provide reliable details of the transport of the plume across Japan.

Mark

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If you need your fix of
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2011-05-13 05:56.
If you need your fix of radiation plumes you still have the ones prepared by ZAMG. Read the disclaimer before having a heart attack:

"The colour scale shows a total of five colours. ,,Area A" (violet) is meant to mark an area with maximum dose rate of 0,3 µSv/h, which corresponds to the amount of the natural background radiation dose. "Area B" (blue) marks a region with 3 Micro-Sievert per hour. Finally, one arrives in "Area E" with a maximum dose rate of 3 Milli-Sievert per hour. This dose rate is currently certainly not exceeded in the regional area (25x25 km2 box) around the NPP. Irrespective of the assumed emissions, the maximum value of the model is always used to determine "Area E".

Please keep in mind that, due to the decreasing level of radioactivity in the crisis region, the actual area of influence is likely much smaller than the one displayed here."

http://www.zamg.ac.at/wetter/fukushima/

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reply
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/3951


DUers have been posting this stuff as though it represented a reality which was happening. It never did.

Posting a forum participant saying that the models are gone due to the "Japanese governments calling for censorship of news and other observations and comments on this forum by journalists not being able to get stories on radioactive contamination levels published in the US" without posting the explanation on the same page by another forum participant who is actually a member of the Berkeley monitoring team is severe cherry-picking imo.