Prognosis of Baltic sea self-cleaning from the

Abstract

On the basis of experimental data and theoretic calculation results, the self-cleaning process of the Baltic Sea from the "chernobyl" radionuclide 137Cs was investigated. A heterogeneous structure of the concentration field of radiocaesium in the surface waters was formed after the Chernobyl Power Plant accident. The duration of the radionuclide concentration levelling process was about three years. Since 1989 the beginning of the self-cleaning process was observed. The calculation results show that the Baltic Sea self-cleaning will be over by the period 2020–2022, if this process depends on the global fallout, vertical turbulent diffusion and radioactive de-cay.