Reconstruction and prediction of radionuclide transport in the Mediterranean sea chain

A model forced with meteorological and run-off data and anthropogenic radioactivity input, was developed to simulate the transport of radionuclides in the chain system of the Mediterranean seas. It incorporates submodels of the Black Sea, Azov Sea, Marmara Sea, Western and Eastern Mediterranean. One-and-a-half-dimensional multi-layer lagrangian models were used to describe horizontally averaged fields of temperature, salinity and tracer concentration in the seas proper. Simple models of hydraulically controlled straits were applied to the Bosphorus, Dardanelles, Sicily and Gibraltar. An empirical relation was used for the shallow Kerch Strait. The model was forced with time series of wind, temperature and freshwater influx. It was used to reconstruct and predict, for the time period 1960–2010, the 137Cs contamination resulting from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and the Chernobyl accident. The model predictions for water, salinity and 137Cs budget are in reasonable agreement with the available data. The peculiarities of Black Sea exchange processes were analysed and compared with other Mediterranean seas.