The Application of Radio-Carbon Techniques to Environmental Monitoring

Details The Application of Radio-Carbon Techniques to Environmental Monitoring The Application of Radio-Carbon Techniques to Environmental Monitoring

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001icrc...10.4192t&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany. Under the auspices of the Int

Physics

Scientific paper

The radiocarbon technique, commonly used in measurements of cosmogenic isotope abundances in order to solve problems of cosmic ray significance, may also be very useful for monitoring the global environment. We show how the abundance of fossil carbon in the atmosphere can be determined and present an example of environmental monitoring using fallen leaves which has been carried out in Japan during the past 4 years. On comparing the radiocarbon content in various regions, high 14 C concentrations have been found for fallen leaves from mountain and country sites, while low concentrations have been observed for leaves from city regions, especially near roads with heavy traffic. The results indicate that the atmosphere of the mountain and country sites in Japan is still clean compared to the other sites but the CO2 coming from fossil non-radioactive carbon significantly pollutes the atmosphere of the city sites. The decrease of δ14 C near heavy traffic sites in large cities is consistent with the increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere assuming that almost all CO2 in this region originates from fossil fuel. We have found that the CO2 content of the atmosphere originating from the petrol combustion (mainly by cars) in central Tokyo is more than 8 % of that of natural origin.

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