> The plume of chemical vapors covered a significant proportion this country's breadbasket.
Does anybody have a scientific (not clickbait) citation for this?
The quick HYSPLIT plume simulation I ran[0] showed the plume crossing over New England on its way to the Atlantic. There is agriculture there, but I would hardly describe it as the nation's bread basket.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of contamination of the food supply from pesticides and soil-accumulating heavy metals in fertilizers. Buying local and organic food isn't paranoid, but it would be a mistake to over-attribute these pollution sources to the East Palestine incident.
Indeed, different assumptions yield different data. The simulation I ran assumed 1.1 million lb of material released during the controlled burn on Feb 6 (this caused the famous "mushroom cloud" photos), while the Reddit sim seems to assume a constant release rate (quantity unknown) starting at the time of the initial derailment and fire. The actual plume will be some combination.
Does anybody have a scientific (not clickbait) citation for this?
The quick HYSPLIT plume simulation I ran[0] showed the plume crossing over New England on its way to the Atlantic. There is agriculture there, but I would hardly describe it as the nation's bread basket.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of contamination of the food supply from pesticides and soil-accumulating heavy metals in fertilizers. Buying local and organic food isn't paranoid, but it would be a mistake to over-attribute these pollution sources to the East Palestine incident.
[0] https://www.ready.noaa.gov/hypub-bin/hyresults.pl?jobidno=28...