Finding out: Fallout from Fukushima

Where can you get information about the amounts of radioactive material being dispersed from the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi reactors?  It hasn't been easy to get reliable information about radiation levels, as we've discussed in class.  A few places to look that go beyond what's in the mainstream news:

1)  The United States EPA "RadNet" system
This is a system of radiation monitors all around the US that is constantly taking data.  Graphs and information are made publicly available, although they are not always extremely easy to interpret, and there are often gaps in the data due to equipment issues and upgrades.  The EPA also releases news updates that provide a summary view based on the radiation readings.
RadNet "Data Map" interface for getting information from the stationary monitors
EPA daily data summary

2) The CTBTO radionuclide stations
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is an international organization dedicated to monitoring the world for evidence of nuclear weapons tests as a part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  While the treaty is not yet in force, the international network of monitoring stations still is producing data, and it shares this data with its member states.  This data is not made public directly by the CTBTO, but in Austria, researchers have been making public some of the CTBTO radiation measurements and climate modeling.  The central web pages are all in German, but many of the updates and links are in English.
Main web page for ZAMG - Austrian meteorology information
Latest update on the fallout from Japan
An animation from fallout modeling
A report (in English) from March 25
Another report (in English) from March 22

3) "Crowdsourcing"
I've seen a bunch of articles on "crowdsourcing" radiation measurements, both in Japan and in the rest of the world.  The idea is that a bunch of ordinary citizens buy geiger counters and monitor radiation levels where they live, contributing the data to a central database.  There are a lot of potential problems with this (unless the users of the geiger counters really understand the details of making radiation measurements), but it has the advantage of being totally decoupled from any authority source.  Below are a few articles and some of the web sites where this information is collected.
NPR article on "citizen science" radiation measurements in Japan
CNET article on radiation "crowdsourcing"
The RDTN network (Japan)
alTokyo website (measurements in Tokyo)
Radiation Network (U.S., with links to similar projects in Japan and Europe)


4) Physics graduate students!
I was personally super excited to find a research paper written by one of my grad school professors and some of his current students at the University of Washington in Seattle.  They measured the radioactive isotopes that arrived in Seattle from the Japanese reactor and were actually able to use this information to infer some details about the disaster.  Really cool!
A blog article about the research