Abstract
The aim of this paper is to statistically characterize gross beta activity concentrations in ground-level air in Bilbao (northern Spain) by analysing five years (2014–2018) worth of weekly measurements in aerosols collected in filters to analyse the impact of local meteorological parameters on concentrations. In addition, synoptic meteorological scenarios associated with anomalous beta surface activity concentrations were identified. Over this five-year period, beta activity concentrations ranged from 35.45 µBq/m3 to 1778 µBq/m3 with a mean of 520.12 ± 281.77 µBq/m3. A positive correlation was found with the alpha concentrations (0.67), with an average of 0.138 for the alpha/beta ratio, and a low correlation was found with 7Be (0.16). Statistical analysis identified a seasonal component in the time series, increasing, on average, beta activity concentrations from winter to autumn. The highest beta activity concentrations were measured under the arrival of southerly land winds with low wind speeds, while the wind analysis (surface winds and air masses) of two different seasonal periods (autumn 2015 and winter 2017) have highlighted how small variations in synoptic and local winds highly influence beta activity concentrations. These results are relevant to understand the meteorological factors affecting beta activity concentrations in this area and hence to define meteorological scenarios that are in favour to high/anomalous surface activity concentrations that are harmful to the environmental and public health.
Highlights
The presence of gross beta activity concentrations in the air can be explained in normal situations as being due to the presence of long-lived daughters of gaseous 222Rn, such as 210Pb (T1/2 = 22.2 years) and 210Bi (T1/2 = 5.01 days), which are attached to aerosols after cluster formation [1,2,3], and the presence of cosmogenic radionuclides such as 7Be, 22Na, and so on [3]
To the authors’ knowledge, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, which as different meteorological and climatic conditions, there is a lack of studies analysing gross beta activity concentrations and their link with meteorological conditions
Trend represents the evolution of the series over a long period of time and needs yearly values
Summary
The understanding of aerosol gross activity concentrations and the detection of activity peaks or anomalies in a region is based on the evaluation, analysis, and identification of the main meteorological scenarios and parameters influencing them, such as rainfall, temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and wind speed and wind direction In this sense, several studies have explained the variation of gross beta activities and their relationship with meteorological parameters in the Iberian Peninsula, such as Sáez-Muñoz et al, 2018, in Valencia (east) [8]; Dueñas et al, 1999, and Cabello et al, 2018, in Malaga (south) [9,10]; García-Talavera et al, 2001, in Salamanca (west) [11]; and Rodas Ceballos et al, 2016, [12] and Hernández et al, 2005, [13] in the Balearic and Canary Islands, respectively. The findings of this investigation complement those of earlier studies, and on top of this, it provides insights on the impact of synoptic meteorological conditions on anomalous beta activity concentrations
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