Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015

Kuo-Ying Wang; Philippe Nedelec; Hannah Clark; Neil Harris; Mizuo Kajino; Yasuhito Igarashi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272937

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 5, 2021
29 Mar 2022 Decision Letter - James R. Lyons, Editor PONE-D-21-14834 Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wang, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by May 12 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: General comments The authors present the first continuous measurements of air dose rates in the ocean atmosphere after a major accident at a nuclear power plant. The data is considered to be very valuable. The amount of data is shown by many figures, but it was difficult to read many supplementary figures, especially in the discussion. I think it would have been easier to understand the discussions if they were presented together with the results. In terms of the suspension, I think it is necessary to discuss whether it is the effect of the Fukushima accident or the effect from the continent due to atmospheric nuclear weapons tests I believe that this paper is suitable for the publication in PLOS ONE after minor revisions. Specific comments L36 The PGGM project needs to be cited here. Figure 1 and 2; The earth quake epicenter is not mentioned in the text, so I don't think it needs to be in this diagram. Ｌ150 The authors should describe the model domain in an easy-to-understand manner in terms of latitude and longitude. L171 The month of March 2011 is a period of large-scale atmospheric depression. Fig. 3(a) shows one month's data at a time, but a more detailed analysis is needed. L213 The authors should include Fig. S2 in the text, as it is an important result. The results of the statistical analysis should also be described in more detail. L245 Aoyama et al., 2016 is not in References; please cite 31 and 40 more correctly. Also, there doesn't seem to be any elevated Cs-137 measurements for this period in the cited sources. L251 It is difficult for me to find out that the months of increase in the air dose rates mostly occur from November to April and from June to August in Fig 4 e. The authors should these periods more clearly. L399 I think it is very unfortunate that the comparison is limited to Tokyo Bay only, despite the availability of data for the Pacific Ocean. For example, one of the authors has developed the North Pacific scale model presented in (Aoyama et al., 2016). I think a comparison with the North Pacific Scale Model would be very valuable. L503 In terms of resuspension, I think it is necessary to discuss whether it is the effect of the Fukushima accident or the effect from the continent due to atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. Reviewer #2: The paper presents results of unique network of dose rate measurements done all over the world on board on merchant ships. However the interpretation, especially that regarding connection of North Atlantic results with post-accident trace releases from Fukushima seems to be for me not enough supported. The GM counter, as only dose rate meter is not sufficient tool for such long distance study. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. 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Revision 1
28 May 2022 Author Response Response to reviewers’ comments. Manuscript Number PONE-D-21-14834 Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 By Wang et al. We are very grateful indeed to the reviewers, the editor, and the editorial office for very encouraging and insightful comments that have significantly increased the clarity of the manuscript. We have revised the manuscript following the comments. A detailed point to point response to each comment is given below. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: * A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. Reply. We have uploaded the Response to Reviewers. * A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. Reply. We have uploaded a separated file, labeled “Revised_Manuscript_with_Track_Changes.pdf”. * An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. Reply. We have uploaded an unmarked version of the revised manuscript. Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file? id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Reply. We have reformatted the manuscript following the PLOS LaTex template. 2. Please update your submission to use the PLOS LaTeX template. The template and more information on our requirements for LaTeX submissions can be found at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/latex. Reply. We have submitted the revised manuscript using the PLOS LaTex template. 3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. Reply. We have provided grant number in the Acknowledgements. 4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "KYW is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (www.most.gov.tw; 107-2111-M-008-027-). PN and HC are supported by the the IAGOS project (www.iagos.org)." Reply. Thank you very much for your confirmation. Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Reply. We have included this Role of Funder statement in the cover letter. 5. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Reply. We have described in the manuscript that all the data of air dose rates measurements reported in this work are openly available at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3563214. 6. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contain satellite images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission: Reply. We have replaced the satellite image used in Fig. 1 with a satellite image from CSRSR. We have obtained a written permission from the Director of CSRSR for using this satellite in the manuscript. a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 1 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text: “I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.” Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission. Reply. We have uploaded the completed Content Permission Form signed by CSRSR. In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].” Reply. We have included the copyright text in the Figure 1 caption. 7. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Reply. We have included captions of Supporting Information files at the end of the manuscript. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Please add a thorough discussion of the suitability of the GM counter for the measurements reported in your manuscript. Reply. We have included a thorough discussion of the suitability of the GM counter for the measurements reported in this work in the section Discussion. Include any technical data that support the use of the GM counter for this work, and also cite and discuss other examples in which comparable measurements have been made with this instrument. Reply. The GM counters RadEye B20 and G10 were used in this work. Both GM counters have been extensively used in published works related to the measurements of air dose rates in places associated with tests of nuclear weapons, accidents from nuclear power plants, medical imaging processes with patients injected with nuclear materials, robotic exploration of nuclear environment, radioactivity safety training, etc. We have included technical data from above examples that support the use of the GM counter for this work. We have cited and discussed above examples in which comparable measurements have made with the GM counter used in this work. Reviewer #1: General comments The authors present the first continuous measurements of air dose rates in the ocean atmosphere after a major accident at a nuclear power plant. The data is considered to be very valuable. The amount of data is shown by many figures, but it was difficult to read many supplementary figures, especially in the discussion. I think it would have been easier to understand the discussions if they were presented together with the results. In terms of the suspension, I think it is necessary to discuss whether it is the effect of the Fukushima accident or the effect from the continent due to atmospheric nuclear weapons tests I believe that this paper is suitable for the publication in PLOS ONE after minor revisions. Reply. We are very grateful to the reviewer for very insightful comments that have significantly increased the clarity of the manuscript. We have followed reviewer’s comments to revised the manuscript. In the following, we provide point-to-point responses to reviewer’s comments. Specific comments L36 The PGGM project needs to be cited here. Reply. We have included a citation to the PGGM project. Figure 1 and 2; The earth quake epicenter is not mentioned in the text, so I don’t think it needs to be in this diagram. Reply. We have included following description in the text: “(see Fig. 1 for the epicenter of the 11-March-2011 earthquake and the FDNPS site)” Ｌ150 The authors should describe the model domain in an easy-to-understand manner in terms of latitude and longitude. Reply. We have included following description of the model domain: “The model has a domain area from $125^{\\circ}E$ to $155^{\\circ}E$ in longitudes, and from $28^{\\circ}N$ to $48^{\\circ}N$ in latitudes.” L171 The month of March 2011 is a period of large-scale atmospheric depression. Fig. 3(a) shows one month’s data at a time, but a more detailed analysis is needed. Reply. We have included following analysis in the description: “We note that the month of March 2011 is a period of large-scale atmospheric depression. Two large-scale low pressure systems are located on both side of the Bering Sea: The Aleutian Low on the left, and on the right is a surface low pressure system over the off-shore of area between the Bering Sea and the western Pacific coast of Canada.” L213 The authors should include Fig. S2 in the text, as it is an important result. The results of the statistical analysis should also be described in more detail. Reply. We have followed reviewer’s comment to include Fig. S2 in the main text, and include a description and a reference of the statistical method used in this work. L245 Aoyama et al., 2016 is not in References; please cite 31 ad 40 more correctly. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any elevated Cs-137 measurements for this period in the cited sources. Reply. We have corrected citation to Aoyama et al., 2016 (original cite 31). We have checked and corrected citations to 31 and 40. We have revised the description “The dose rates increased again from December 2011 to January 2012, during May-August and in October 2012; in January, March, and June-September 2013,…” (old, lines 241-242) The Cs-137 measurements shown in Fig. 9 (and also in Fig. 2 of Aoyama et al. 2016 part 1 paper). There exists local maximum of Cs-137 of about 1.2E+04 Bq/m3 relative to nearby measurements of 0.8-0.9 Bq/m3 during December 2011 – January 2012. During May-August 2012, a local maximum of 0.9E+04 Bq/m3. In October 2012, a local maximum of 0.8E+04 Bq/m3. In January 2013, a local maximum of 1.6E+03 Bq/m3. In March 2013, a local maximum of 2.1E+03 Bq/m3. During June-September 2013, a local maximum of 5.5E+03 Bq/m3. During July-October 2014, a local maximum of 3.1E+03 Bq/m3. We have revised the following description: “The dose rates increased again from December 2011 to January 2012, during May-August and in October 2012; in January, March, and June-September 2013; and in July-October 2014. Importantly, these are also periods showing existence of a local maximum of elevated $^{137}Cs$ measurements in the surface water of the FDNPS (see Fig.~\\ref{fig10} and in Fig. 2 of Aoyama et al., 2016$^{31}$).” L251 It is difficult for me to find out that the months of increase in the air dose rates mostly occur from November to April and from June to August in Fig 4 e. The authors should these periods more clearly. Reply. We have included a schematic figure to highlight the months of increase in the air dose rates from time-series plot shown in Fig 4e. L399 I think it is very unfortunate that the comparison is limited to Tokyo Bay only, despite the availability of data for the Pacific Ocean. For example, one of the authors has developed the North Pacific scale model presented in (Aoyama et al., 2016). I think a comparison with the North Pacific Scale Model would be very valuable. Reply. We are very grateful to the reviewer for suggesting the use of the dose rate data over the North Pacific for verifying model results. The initial comparisons over the Tokyo Bay is encouraging. Previous modeling studies compared model results with the CTBTO data over the North Pacific. We are working on the follow-up work to compare model simulations with the air dose rates over the North Pacific. This would be very valuable, as commented by the reviewer. Our measurements of the air dose rates over the land and over the water shows quite different characteristics. The mechanism of resuspension, as shown in Kajino et al. (2016), will be a key factor for assessing model capabilities in simulating the dispersions of the radionuclides after the FDNPS accident. L503 In terms of resuspension, I think it is necessary to discuss whether it is the effect of the Fukushima accident or the effect from the continent due to atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. Reply. We have added discussion of the effect from the continent due to the atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. We have based our discussion on the radionuclide data collected and analyzed by the gamma spectrometers in the global radionuclide stations from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization (CTBTO) during the period 2000-2020. We have included the discussion using CTBTO data in section discussion. Reviewer #2: The paper presents results of unique network of dose rate measurements done all over the world on board on merchant ships. However the interpretation, especially that regarding connection of North Atlantic results with post-accident trace releases from Fukushima seems to be for me not enough supported. The GM counter, as only dose rate meter is not sufficient tool for such long distance study. Reply. We are very grateful to the reviewer for the comment. The dose rate measurements over the northwestern Atlantic, as shown in Fig. 8(d) (revised manuscript) were faint, but were still positively correlated with the FDNPS emissions fluxes and the Tsukuba deposition fluxes. In the revised manuscript, we have used data from CTBTO for impacts of the FDNPS. The CTBTO measurements at Reykjavik provides good data from gamma spectrometer measurements of the CTBT-relevant radionuclides. We have included this description in the text. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] Reply. We have not found attachment file when logged in and checked for the action link “View Attachments”. While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Reply. We have uploaded all figures to PACE at https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com as suggested. The figure tiff files were checked and downloaded from PACE. In compliance with data protection regulations, you may request that we remove your personal registration details at any time. (Remove my information/details). Please contact the publication office if you have any questions. Reply. Thank you very much indeed. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272937.r002
29 Jun 2022 Decision Letter - James R. Lyons, Editor PONE-D-21-14834R1 Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wang, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please address the minor issues raised by Reviewer 2 to improve manuscript clarity and to correct a couple of typographical errors. Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 11 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. 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The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I believe the authors have made appropriate revisions in accordance with the peer review opinion. Therefore, I believe this paper is suitable for publication in the PLOS ONE. I look forward to the next developments using the North Pacific scale atmospheric model. Reviewer #2: Thank you for improving the text by introducing the changes suggested by reviewers. It a bit pity, that during improvements the numeration of rows disappeared from left side, and on right side it is cut out. This makes referring to certain places a bit difficult. Problematic sites remains: In a section “The Monitoring Devices and Calibration” there are questions tags left in the brackets with references. This suggests that some reference is missing. In the same section the measurement range is given only using maximum values (< 2mSv/h), whereas the minimum detectable value of 10 microSv/h is given a bit later. So I think the initially maximum value should be named for instance “the maximum detectable dose rate” or “the upper limit of measurement range” not the “range” which apparently was from 10 micro to 2 mili Sv/h. In a section “Emission and Deposition Fluxes” please note that “chi squared test” is written with small character (“Chi” is not any name) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272937.r003
Revision 2
17 Jul 2022 Author Response Response to reviewers’ comments. Manuscript Number PONE-D-21-14834R1 Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 By Wang et al. We are very grateful indeed to the reviewers, the editor, and the editorial office for very encouraging and insightful comments that have significantly increased the clarity of the manuscript. We have revised the manuscript following the comments. A detailed point to point response to each comment is given below. Reviewer #2: Thank you for improving the text by introducing the changes suggested by reviewers. It a bit pity, that during improvements the numeration of rows disappeared from left side, and on right side it is cut out. This makes referring to certain places a bit difficult. Reply. We have revised the line numbers to the left of the manuscript so that the row numbers can be viewed clearly. Problematic sites remains: In a section “The Monitoring Devices and Calibration” there are questions tags left in the brackets with references. This suggests that some reference is missing. Reply. The questions tags were produced due to a missing numbers used in the cited reference which latex cannot find it. We have revised the cited reference numbers in the revised manuscript. (page 3, lines 75-76) In the same section the measurement range is given only using maximum values (< 2mSv/h), whereas the minimum detectable value of 10 microSv/h is given a bit later. So I think the initially maximum value should be named for instance “the maximum detectable dose rate” or “the upper limit of measurement range”; not the “range” which apparently was from 10 micro to 2 mili Sv/h. Reply. We have followed reviewer’s comment to revise the description to “the upper limit of measurement range”. (page 3, lines 74-76) In a section “Emission and Deposition Fluxes” please note that “chi squared test” is written with small character (“Chi” is not any name) Reply. We have revised the Chi to chi, following reviewer’s comment. (page 6, line 191) Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_2.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272937.r004
1 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - James R. Lyons, Editor Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 PONE-D-21-14834R2 Dear Dr. Wang, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, James R. Lyons, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272937.r005
Formally Accepted
3 Aug 2022 Acceptance Letter - James R. Lyons, Editor PONE-D-21-14834R2 Impacts on air dose rates after the Fukushima accident over the North Pacific from 19 March 2011 to 2 September 2015 Dear Dr. Wang: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. James R. Lyons Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272937.r006

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