The releases of January 2017 are 10,000 times lower than those observed (in France) following the Fukushima incident[0]<p>CRIIRAD[1] believes that the meteorological conditions (and air pollution actually in Europe) and (legal) authorizations of iodine-131 releases by the industry are the cause of this event which could have passed unnoticed[0]<p>It is an unimportant event.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe_Radioactivite.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe...</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html</a>
I'm in Germany and I have a Geiger counter running 24/7. I just looked at the data for January and February and the only thing that I notice is a VERY slightly higher reading on February 4th with 0.1727 microSievert/hour. Average for January was 0.1674, lowest was 0.1631, highest was 0.1703. So February 4th was less than 6% higher than the lowest value from January.<p>The difference was so small that I had just attributed it to normal fluctuations when I first saw it. Whatever caused this, so far it looks like it was a very small event.<p>I could probably provide a CSV-file with the raw data if anyone is interested. My Geiger counter stores a value every 5 minutes.
It is amazing to me how effective the Earth is becoming at relaying globally-affecting information to (for lack of a better term) stakeholders.<p>Why the month delay?
> The detection of this radionuclide is proof of a rather recent release.<p>Three questions<p>After rain?<p>Could be Iodine being generated directly in place from other compounds or being seeded by suspended dust in clouds?<p>Could be this "Ukranian war" related?<p>2015: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9644685" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9644685</a>
Similar incident was reported last October.<p>News in Finland's national broadcasting:
<a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/radiation_safety_watchdog_hunts_source_of_radioactive_iodine_tagged_in_air_samples/9261478" rel="nofollow">http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/radiation_safety_watchdog_...</a>
Probably related to this recent incident <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-power-plant-in-france/" rel="nofollow">http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-power-p...</a>
Poland has the highest reading - something going awry at Chernobyl or somebody testing low yield nukes?<p>I am also really disappointed this wasn't anywhere in the news, at least people could have taken some iodine. I understand the level is low but there is still non-zero probability of somebody going ill from it.