A study of atmospheric radon transport as a tracer of pollutants over the Japan Sea

Publisher Summary This chapter evaluates the ratio of air mass transport quantitatively using radon as a tracer, for Oki and Tonghae. It was found that the contribution of transport from the surface of the continent of China to the surface of Japan reaches 40% under winter monsoon conditions in Japan. In this chapter, some results were presented only for Oki and Tonghae. A similar analysis for Nagoya and Oki was also made. However, 222 Rn concentrations measured at Nagoya are strongly affected by local sources that override the variations in the continental component. This makes the correlation coefficient between Nagoya and Oki much poorer than that between Tonghae and Oki. It was found that diurnal variations were clearer at Tonghae than Oki. By comparing the baseline trends, that are day-to-day trends of daily minima at these two stations, pollutants in the continental air mass were found to be diluted to 40% during their transport over the Sea of Japan in the winter season.