Measurements of the tritium and deuterium concentration in atmospheric hydrogen

Tritium and deuterium measurements were made on closely spaced samples of atmospheric hydrogen collected from August 1957 through January 1958. Some of the variations in tritium concentration were also shown by the deuterium variations. These variations in concentration of tritium and deuterium can be explained by admixture of industrial hydrogen, as suggested by Begemann and Friedman. However, there were also large rapid variations in tritium concentration that did not correlate with changes in deuterium, and these tritium peaks appear in samples collected in Germany several days after known Soviet H-bomb explosions. To study tritium peaks whose rise and decay times are fairly rapid it is necessary to have samples spaced out but a few days apart. It is also necessary to analyze these samples for deuterium as well as for tritium in order to assess the role of industrial contamination.