Data from: Reconstruction of fallout deposition from U.S. atmospheric nuclear tests conducted in New Mexico and Nevada
Data files
Jul 14, 2026 version files 113.95 MB
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figure2-iodine-dep-per-county.zip
2.48 MB
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figure3-trinity-daily-cumulative.zip
4.49 MB
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figure4-trinity-ensembles.zip
8.06 MB
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figure5-all-tests-cumulative.zip
95.94 MB
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README.md
5.74 KB
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supplementary_figure3-airbursts.zip
2.99 MB
Abstract
This repository contains the datasets underlying the figures presented in the accompanying article on the reconstruction of radioactive fallout from U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapon tests conducted in New Mexico and Nevada between 1945 and 1962. The data were generated using the NOAA HYSPLIT atmospheric transport and dispersion model driven by the ERA5 meteorological reanalysis. The repository includes: (1) county-level iodine-131 deposition estimates for the atmospheric tests used to benchmark the model against National Cancer Institute reconstructions (Figure 2 in associated manuscript); (2) daily cumulative gridded deposition fields for the Trinity test over the first 10 days following detonation (Figure 3); (3) reconstructed Trinity deposition results using the 10 ERA5 ensemble members together with the control simulation (Figure 4); (4) the cumulative gridded deposition field resulting from all 94 non-zero-yield atmospheric nuclear tests reconstructed in this study (Figure 5); and (5) county-level iodine-131 deposition datasets for three alternative airburst particle-size distributions used in the sensitivity analysis presented in Supplementary Figure 3. The datasets are provided in machine-readable formats and include geographic coordinates or identifiers, test numbers where applicable, deposition values expressed in becquerels per square meter (Bq m -2), and associated metadata. Together, these data enable reproduction of the published figures, independent validation of the modeling results, comparison with historical fallout reconstructions, and reuse for studies of atmospheric transport, environmental contamination, radiation dose assessment, and historical nuclear testing. The repository contains no personally identifiable information or human subject data and raises no ethical or privacy concerns. All datasets were generated from publicly available historical test information, meteorological reanalysis products, and physics-based atmospheric transport simulations. Users should interpret the reconstructed deposition estimates together with the accompanying documentation and the associated publication, which describe the modeling assumptions, source terms, and uncertainty analyses underlying the datasets.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cvdncjtkc
Description of the data and file structure
The datasets in this repository were generated as part of a physics-based reconstruction of radioactive fallout from U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapon tests conducted in New Mexico and Nevada between 1945 and 1962. Atmospheric transport and deposition were simulated using the NOAA Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model driven by the ERA5 meteorological reanalysis. Model initialization relied on publicly available historical information for each nuclear test, including detonation time, location, yield, stabilized cloud geometry, and particle-size distributions.
The repository contains the processed datasets used to generate the figures in the accompanying publication:
- Figure 2: One CSV file containing county-level iodine-131 deposition estimates (Bq m -2) for the 51 Nevada atmospheric tests used to compare the model with the National Cancer Institute reconstruction.
- Figure 3: Ten ESRI ASCII raster grids (.asc) containing cumulative deposition fields for the Trinity test at daily intervals from Day 1 through Day 10 after detonation.
- Figure 4: Ten ESRI ASCII raster grids (.asc) containing cumulative Day-10 deposition fields reconstructed using each of the ten ERA5 ensemble members for the Trinity test.
- Figure 5: Ninety-four ESRI ASCII raster grids (.asc), one for each reconstructed non-zero-yield atmospheric nuclear test, containing cumulative 10-day deposition fields used to generate the cumulative fallout map.
- Supplementary Figure 3: Three CSV files containing county-level iodine-131 deposition estimates for airburst tests reconstructed using three alternative particle-size distributions (geometric standard deviations of 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0) for the sensitivity analysis.
Together, these datasets provide the processed model outputs required to reproduce the published figures and enable independent analyses of fallout deposition, atmospheric transport, model sensitivity, and historical nuclear testing.
Files and variables
File:
figure2-iodine-dep-per-county.zip
Contents
figure2-iodine-dep-per-county.csv
Variables
GEOID– Five-digit U.S. county FIPS code.NAME– County name.test_number– Unique identifier of the atmospheric nuclear test.avg_deposition_Bq_m2– County-average iodine-131 deposition density (Bq m -2).
File:
figure3-trinity-daily-cumulative.zip
Contents
figure3-Trinity-daily-000001-dep-D1.asc- …
figure3-Trinity-daily-000001-dep-D10.asc
(10 ESRI ASCII raster grids)
Variables
Each raster cell contains:
- Cumulative total fission-product deposition density (Bq m -2) from the Trinity test through the specified day after detonation.
File:
figure4-trinity-ensembles.zip
Contents
figure4-Trinity-ensembles-00-dep-D10.asc- …
figure4-Trinity-ensembles-09-dep-D10.asc
(10 ESRI ASCII raster grids)
Variables
Each raster cell contains:
- Cumulative 10-day total fission-product deposition density (Bq m -2) from the Trinity test reconstructed using one ERA5 ensemble member.
File:
figure5-all-tests-cumulative.zip
Contents
figure5-deposition-data-for-test-000001-dep-D10.asc- …
figure5-deposition-data-for-test-000094-dep-D10.asc
(94 ESRI ASCII raster grids)
Variables
Each raster cell contains:
- Cumulative 10-day total fission-product deposition density (Bq m -2) for one reconstructed atmospheric nuclear test.
The test corresponding to each file is identified by the test number in the filename and can be matched to the test information provided in the accompanying publication.
File:
supplementary_figure3-airbursts.zip
Contents
supp-figure-3-deposition-iodine_air_tests_by_county_s-2.csvsupp-figure-3-deposition-iodine_air_tests_by_county_s-2.5.csvsupp-figure-3-deposition-iodine_air_tests_by_county_s-3.csv
Variables
GEOID– Five-digit U.S. county FIPS code.NAME– County name.test_number– Unique identifier of the atmospheric nuclear test.avg_deposition_Bq_m2– County-average iodine-131 deposition density (Bq m -2). Empty cells are used to indicate missing data.
The three files correspond to airburst particle-size distributions with geometric standard deviations (σg) of 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0, respectively.
Code/software
The datasets can be viewed and analyzed using free and open-source software. CSV files can be opened with spreadsheet software such as LibreOffice Calc, or analyzed using Python with the pandas package. ESRI ASCII raster grid files (.asc) can be opened in geographic information system software such as QGIS, or read programmatically using Python geospatial packages.
The data were generated and processed using NOAA HYSPLIT version 5.2.0, Python 3, pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, SciPy, and standard geospatial processing tools. ERA5 meteorological fields were used as input to HYSPLIT. The raster files are provided as processed model outputs and do not require HYSPLIT to view or reuse.
No executable code or scripts are included with this repository. To reproduce the published figures, users may load the CSV files directly with pandas or spreadsheet software, and load the .asc raster files in QGIS or another GIS package capable of reading ESRI ASCII grids. The figure-specific archives correspond directly to the figures described in the accompanying publication.