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| With her mentor, Professor Yasuo Miyake of the Meteorological Research Institute, ca. 1990. |
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I enrolled in the physics department at the Imperial
Women's Science College. But it was during World War II, and the school
had just been established, so its facilities were inadequate. During summer
vacation, the students would be sent to work at other universities and laboratories
to round out our education. I was interested in questions like, "Why
does it rain?" so I was sent to work with Dr. Yasuo Miyake of the Central
Meteorological Observatory (now the Japan
Meteorological Agency). There, under Dr. Miyake's guidance, I did research
on the physicochemical properties of polonium, a radioactive substance discovered
by the great Polish chemist and physicist Marie Curie.
The year I graduated, there was great demand for researchers to work on
military-related technology for the army and navy, and more than 80% of
my friends accepted such jobs. But I was unwilling to join the war effort,
so in 1943 I decided to take a position at the Central Meteorological Observatory,
where I did research on the oceans and the atmosphere. I became involved
particularly in analyzing radioactive substances found in atmospheric dust
and rain. In 1957 I earned my doctorate in science from the University
of Tokyo for my dissertation "The Behavior of Carbonic Matter in
Natural Water."
In March 1954, the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon V was
exposed to radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll,
and the "ashes of death" that had sickened the men were brought
into the Meteorological Research Institute where I was working. That was
the beginning of my long involvement in research on radioactivity and the
oceans. In 1961 my research team measured levels of radioactivity in ocean
water at intervals of 1,000 meters below the surface and detected radioactivity
as deep as 8,000 meters. This showed that contaminated water near the surface
of the ocean mixed with water in the ocean depths much faster than had previously
been thought, mixing with the entire ocean in a matter of few hundred years.
Since then, I have been taking samples of ocean water from the Pacific and
the waters off Japan to study how ocean and wind currents disperse radioactivity.
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