⁷Be spatial and temporal pattern in southwest of Europe (Spain): Evaluation of a predictive model

This study presents a comprehensive statistical analysis of the cosmogenic radioisotope ⁷Be measured in surface air in ten stations over Spain for a 9 years period (from January 2006 to December 2014). Besides the analysis of ⁷Be seasonal and inter-annual variability, ⁷Be frequency distributions and its correlations with meteorological variables observed in the 10 sampling sites were investigated. The second part of this paper focuses on a feasibility study for the application of the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to predict monthly ⁷Be activity concentrations using meteorological variables, PM10 concentrations and the sunspot number as input parameters. Notwithstanding the low correlations found between ⁷Be and input parameter, the performance of the ANNs, as evaluated by the relevant statistical parameters, demonstrates their capability to correctly predict ⁷Be monthly activities in the 10 Spanish sampling sites.