Threat to Norway from potential accidents at the Kola nuclear power plant. Climatological trajectory analysis and episode studies

Following the experiences after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, Norwegian Authorities regard the effects from accidental releases at nuclear installations in neighboring countries to be among the greatest environmental threats in the coming years. One of these nuclear installations is the Kola Nuclear Power Plant (Kola NPP). The unsatisfactory safety at the Kola NPP has been of major concern and a ‘Norwegian Plan of Action for Nuclear Safety’ has been worked out (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1995. Plan of action for follow-up activities to Report no. 34 to Norwegian parliament (1993–1994)). As a response to this plan, DNMI has been involved in a project called: ‘Consequence Analysis of Potential Accidents at the Kola Nuclear Power Plantʹ. DNMIʹs part of the project consisted of analyzing the atmospheric transport and deposition pattern resulting from potential accidents at the Kola NPP. Results based on two different methodologies are presented in this paper. (1) Trajectory analysis as a tool for describing the air pollution transport pattern and screening of a large set of meteorological data for the selection of weather situations suitable for episode studies. (2) Episode studies using DNMIʹs dispersion model ‘Severe Nuclear Accident Program’ (SNAP) for the selected episodes.