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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-5725</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Nuclear contamination limits &lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;CH&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt; but not &lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; source attribution in a five-year Swiss atmospheric monitoring network</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Geissbühler</surname>
<given-names>Dylan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5110-1134</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Laemmel</surname>
<given-names>Thomas</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6110-954X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Henne</surname>
<given-names>Stephan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6637-4887</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Brunner</surname>
<given-names>Dominik</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4007-6902</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Haghipour</surname>
<given-names>Negar</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gautschi</surname>
<given-names>Philip</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Leuenberger</surname>
<given-names>Markus</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4299-6793</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Espic</surname>
<given-names>Christophe</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bantle</surname>
<given-names>Matthias</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Graven</surname>
<given-names>Heather</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wacker</surname>
<given-names>Lukas</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8215-2678</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Szidat</surname>
<given-names>Sönke</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1824-6207</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Empa, Laboratory for Air Pollution/Environmental Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Laboratory for Ion Beam Physics, Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>now at: Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>now at: MIRO Analytical AG, Wallisellen, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>03</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>51</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Dylan Geissbühler et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5725/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5725/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5725/egusphere-2026-5725.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5725/egusphere-2026-5725.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Radiocarbon (&amp;sup1;⁴C) measurements of atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄ enable distinction between fossil and modern biogenic sources, providing critical constraints for emission inventories and mitigation efforts. We present multi-year, multi-site atmospheric &amp;sup1;⁴CO₂ and &amp;sup1;⁴CH₄ data from a monitoring network in Switzerland (2019&amp;ndash;2023), combining fortnightly sampling at five boundary layer sites (4 rural and 1 urban) on the Swiss Plateau and the alpine background station Jungfraujoch with FLEXPART-COSMO atmospheric transport simulations based on Swiss and European emission inventories. Fossil CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; estimates showed expected spatial patterns, with highest values at the urban site and reasonable agreement with inventory-based simulations. Nuclear &amp;Delta;(&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;C, CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;) contamination was negligible (+0.2 &amp;plusmn; 0.4 &amp;permil;) and recent observations of Swiss ecosystem respiration &amp;Delta;(&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;C, CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;) signature indicated that the respiration correction was also quite small. In contrast, &amp;sup1;⁴CH₄ measurements revealed pervasive nuclear contamination that severely compromised fossil CH₄ source apportionment. Sporadic nuclear &amp;sup1;⁴CH₄ releases could not be adequately resolved with monthly/quarterly emission data from nuclear power plant operators, leading to large model-observation mismatches and physically implausible fossil CH₄ estimates. This demonstrates a fundamental limitation of &amp;sup1;⁴CH₄ for quantitative source attribution in nuclear-influenced regions. The contrasting success of &amp;sup1;⁴CO₂ versus &amp;sup1;⁴CH₄ underscores the need for tracer-specific strategies and highlights challenges posed by expanding nuclear infrastructure globally.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="51"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung</funding-source>
<award-id>193770</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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