A Model for Global Cycling of Tritium

Dynamic compartment models are widely used to describe global cycling of radionuclides for purposes of dose estimation. In this paper we present a new global tritium model that reproduces environmental time-series data on concentrations in precipitation, ocean surface waters, and surface fresh waters in the northern hemisphere, concentrations of atmospheric tritium in the southern hemisphere, and the latitude dependence of tritium in both hemispheres. Named TRICYCLE for “TRItium CYCLE,” the model is based on the global hydrologic cycle and includes hemispheric stratospheric compartments, disaggregation of the troposphere and ocean surface waters into eight latitude zones, consideration of the different concentrations of atmospheric tritium over land and over the ocean, and a diffusive model for transport in the ocean. TRICYCLE reproduces the environmental data if we assume that about 50% of the tritium from atmospheric weapons testing was injected directly into the northern stratosphere as HTO. The model's latitudinal disaggregation permits taking into account the distribution of population. For a uniformly distributed release of HTO into the worldwide troposphere, TRICYCLE predicts a collective dose commitment to the world population that exceeds the NCRP model's corresponding prediction by a factor of three.