By Steve Goddard
Eyjafjallajokull continues to erupt and is again shutting down British airspace:
A statement on the Nats website said the no-fly zone will be extended between 1pm and 7pm today to include Manchester, Liverpool, Carlisle, Doncaster, Humberside and East Midlands airports, all airports in Northern Ireland and Scottish airports, including Prestwick.
The animated image below shows the Met Office ash forecast for the next few days.
They are forecasting that by May 19 the ash cloud will move to the north. Their forecasts assume a constant eruption pattern and are based on modeled changes in wind patterns. Let’s see how they do.
Mt. St Helens erupted 30 years ago this week.
That volcano is stalking CRU for sure. It won´t rest until East Anglia is covered with ash. That´s Gaia revenge to those who said lies about her!
And…just wait for the Yosemite caldera to blow up….
They can’t predict the weather 4 days hence. They know the weather will be catastrophic 100 years from now.
Another event the models didn’t predict.
Iceland’s revenge…
An inconvenient fact, not to be confused with “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was also a spewing of hot, noxious gases from an ash hole.
I’m praying the Cameron government privatises the Met Office and the BBC. Then they’ll be forced to earn the public and private sector’s trust with decent science and journalism. They’ve abused our money and trust for far too long and it has cost the economy massively.
Would anyone have any links to seismic data for Katla, the neighboring, far larger volcano about 20 miles away? The last three times the current erupting volcano (which i cannot spell) has erupted, Katla has erupted within a year of the smaller volcano’s eruption ending. Katla’s eruptions tend to be far larger, around 10x the current one.
I’ve done a few searches, and all I’ve found so far is the results of monitoring the ice thickness, but no actual data for the seismic monitoring (and there are seismic stations for Katla). I assume there are tiltmeters as well.
Hrmm, it occurs to me that if the headlinbes for this eruption were written with the same blame-man zeal of AGW-biased artcicles that blame evereything on AGW, we’d be seeing the following headline: “Icelandic expansionism causes fear and disruptions across Europe. ”
And unlike most AGW-blame articles, that one would even be true, in a twisted sort of way. 🙂
From TimesOnline ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7127706.ece ) comes the following story:
Now if only climate scientists could grasp the fact that there are cycles in the climate as well; cycles upon cyles upon cycles and so on, much more than just the obvious daily, annual, and decadal cycles.
Ascribing all this recent warming to CO2 is like ascribing an elephant’s movements to the fleas jumping on its backside.
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash.
This dance may go on for years, even a decade?
Branson is pissed off about the new airport closures:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278647/UKs-major-airports-close-today-wind-blows-ash-south-Iceland-volcano.html
“Enneagram says:
May 16, 2010 at 3:55 pm
That volcano is stalking CRU for sure. It won´t rest until East Anglia is covered with ash. That´s Gaia revenge to those who said lies about her!
And…just wait for the Yosemite caldera to blow up….”
Don’t you mean Yellowstone? Then there is Long Valley…
Just so you know, that resulted in the spewing of cold Root Beer all over my monitor.. 🙂
This is a left field question.
Has anyone seen a proposal for some sort of a filter dome over the eruption?
At its base, the cloud isnt so big. It might be cheaper to filter the ash out in
Iceland, than stop flights all over Europe. Think of a huge mesh of cables, supported by helium balloons outside the plume.
Then water could be sprayed into the ash cloud.
The St. Helens video is a wonderful reminder of the power of nature. Hard to believe this happened 30 years ago.
I got to take a tour of the devastation with my prof along with other grad students. We camped out on the south side while it was still erupting (albeit not much in Sept 1980). Our camp site had a lot of 1 to 2 inch pumice frags from one of the May post blast eruptive episodes.
I’ve been back twice since and am amazed at how fast nature is re-colonizing the blast area. Kind of shame that you can’t get on a lot of the back roads that were there in 1980 and 1996 when I visited, but if you know your roads there are still a few without locked gates on the south and west sides of the mountain. The Mud River Road on the SW side (out of Cougar, WA) gets you right up to some really cool lahar scars.
Arizona CJ
check this story:
http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/conflicting-data-on-icelandic-volcano-katla-update-5210/
I find no earthquake data for on-shore Iceland for the last 30 days. Someone is trying to prevent panic.
If Katla blows it will be a trifecta, along with a cool PDO and solar minimum. The AGW signal will disappear forever.
Arizona CJ says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Would anyone have any links to seismic data for Katla, the neighboring, far larger volcano about 20 miles away?
________________________________________________________________________
I have been watching this site on a frequent basis
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/
The close up is here
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/
Myrdalsjokull is the glacier on top of Katla
Arizona CJ says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Check this site- http://en.vedur.is/
or more directly at- http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/
Arizona CJ
I found the site you are looking for:
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/vatnajokull.html
there have been two small quakes under the whole complex in the last 48 hours.
CodeTech says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:26 pm
jorgekafkazar says:
An inconvenient fact, not to be confused with “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was also a spewing of hot, noxious gases from an ash hole.
________________________________________________________________________
Just so you know, that resulted in the spewing of cold Root Beer all over my monitor.. 🙂
________________________________________________________________________
I think that one caused a lot of hot and cold spewing. Mine was hot tea. My poor computer has been getting a bath rather frequently lately.
Jet can clog-up, rocket engine not so.
Who is investing in sub-orbital flights??
if you look up climate realists article on http/climaterealists.com/5679 a very good article on icelandic volcanos. By Art Horn. May 9th. Al Gore should read it.
“u.k.(us) says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash.
This dance may go on for years, even a decade?”
You are mistaken – jet engines can operate in volcanic ash although there is a cost in extra wear – similar to operating in a sandstorm. There is a level at which the bulk of ash can cause damage to the engines and flameout but this is like flying directly into the most concentrated part of the cloud. In the main there is greater wear and bonding of melted ash to turbine blades causing inefficiencies.
Thus a decision has to be made at what level is it safe – i.e. the engines will fail if the cloud is penetrated – and at what level is it economically punitive – i.e. the engines won’t fail but will need expensive servicing after flight. There is considerable risk aversion in the regulatory bodies although the fly/no fly decision is not their decision to make. The airlines are the ones that make decisions about penetrating other weather hazards such as thunder showers and hail – and unlike volcanic ash these _have_ caused many fatal crashes. However, now CAA/NATS has made the decision it cannot be handed to the airlines to make as CAA/NATS will be concerned that they will be seen as ‘to blame’ if there is an accident. Unlike the aircraft operators, CAA/NATS has nothing to lose by banning flying and everything to lose by allowing it if there is an incident. Expect continual stringent ‘no-fly’ days for the foreseeable future.
Yeah,…theres yer problem, big rock mountain make fire smoke.
What we need is a giant kettle, pop it in the hot part, boil up some water, and tap the steam to drive a turbine.
The turbine would suck the vapours back towards the Volcannie, eventually smothering itself, in its own soot.
The more it belched, that faster it would affixiate, problem solved – all funding to my Nigerian Orphans account.
Stay tuned for an Inconvenient Truff Two, now with 1.3 dgrees per century AGW.
This is from my company’s flight operations manual:
In other words, see and avoid. That means airspace closure at night — which doesn’t last long at that latitude this time of year — is prudent.
But widespread closure is hysterical; Heathrow is the better part of 1,000 miles from E+15.
Funny how a simple volcanic eruption can spawn such an equally volcanic eruption of political [self-snip].
I personally find it refreshing that volcanoes can cause such a disruption in air travel in our modern times…as though air-travel was some basic human right as opposed to an incredible luxury. Nature has a way of reminding us who ultimately is in charge…
el gordo says:
May 16, 2010 at 6:11 pm
If Katla blows it will be a trifecta, along with a cool PDO and solar minimum. The AGW signal will disappear forever.>>
I think it would just cause a polarity reversal. Jones, Mann, Hanson and the rest of the climate muppets would run the new data in their models and announce that the combination of ash and human emissions would enhance negative feedbacks resulting in an ice age. Gets them off the hook for the coming cooling cycle, Gore gets to make a new movie, the IPCC gets to propose new cut backs and tax schemes, a whole raft of research papers get released pointing to various extinctions and hotter/cooler/stormier/calmer/same/different weather and proclaiming that it has already started, itz worse than we thought, and demanding more research money. Puchauri will claim that Himalayan glaciers will cover all of India by 2035. Lindzen and Eschenbach etc etc would point out that climate is cyclical, that human emissions are logarithmic and so cutting back won’t do much to stop the cooling anyway, which doesn’t appear to be significant in any event.
The warmists will become coolists. The skeptics will still be skeptics, but they will have a whole new raft of cool-aid jokes.
Jeez, am I sick of this thing! I keep forgetting its pronunciation, so I found this, it appears to be credible information:
“Meanwhile, NPR which checked Eyjafjallajokull pronunciation to Iceland’s embassy in Washington D.C. found it as ‘AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul.’ ”
…OK, so now no excuses for spelling & pronunciation errors!
Richard Hill and your filter proposal.
Anything mankind does is insignificant to natural processes. Even a small scale volcanic eruption is magnitudes larger than the nuclear bombs that humans make.
Have a look at some of the available videos of the Eyjafjoll eruption. There are volcanic bombs being hurled all over the place, volcanic lightning, ash being sent up to 9 kms skyward. This is major energy in play here. Human efforts are puny compared to the this.
Iceland’s eruptions are not so serious in the ash fall / weather change category. Its the associated long term fluorine emissions that have historically caused most of the problems in Europe.
Five witpoints to Jorgekafkazar for his “An inconvenient fact, not to be confused with ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ which was also a spewing of hot, noxious gases from an ash hole.” and five bonus points for CodeTech’s “Just so you know, that resulted in the spewing of cold Root Beer all over my monitor.. :)”. Superb!
For the opposite to witty banter, come and join in the fun at:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php
where more typical language is: ‘We defer to the scientists, you denialist moron troll”. I’m seriously outnumbered there, and could do with backup.
What deplorable laziness to call the volcano E+15!
Look, it’s easy, it’s Eya…. correction…. Eyjafallyajok…. oh all right it’s EyetawdItawapuddytat.
Nice close up video of Eyja:
R. Gates – “Nature has a way of reminding us who ultimately is in charge…” ; keep thinking like that and you will soon be a complete skeptic about the human influence on climate. cheers.
Mick says:
May 16, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Jet can clog-up, rocket engine not so.
“Who is investing in sub-orbital flights??”
Rocket engines and rocket propelled planes: Scaled Composites Burt Rutan
http://www.xcor.com/products/engines/4A3_LOX_alcohol_rocket_engine.html
But clogged up jet-engines is not the only problem to overcome!
– clogged up pitot tubes for measuring the air speed
– clogged up holes for measuring static pressure out side the plane
– sanding of the cockpit windows and the airframe by the volcanic particles
damaging sensors and GPS/VHF/Transponder antennas
– static electric discharges effecting electronic and communication equipment
– poisonous gases entering the cockpit and cabin
Current risk management measures allow us to handle the ash risks effectively.
No need to find a replacement for the jet-engine.
All we can do is learn to live with volcanic eruptions and accept the consequences which unfortunately include the temporary closure of airports and airspace.
u.k.(us) says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash.
Actually its the European air regulators who have a zero (or very close to zero) tolerance for ash. Airlines in US fly around volcanic plumes. The problem is one of concentration – not detection. The Euro regulators have adopted something akin to the precautionary principle when it comes to ash, while their American counterparts have examined the risk and have allowed the airlines to set rational thresholds.
davidmhoffer says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:48 pm
“The warmists will become coolists. The skeptics will still be skeptics, but they will have a whole new raft of cool-aid jokes”.
That’s how they started!
Industrial emissions were the cause for Global Cooling in the seventies!
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/world-exclusive-cia-1974-document-reveals-emptiness-of-agw-scares-closes-debate-on-global-cooling-consensus-and-more/
#
Richard Hill says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:51 pm
“This is a left field question.
Has anyone seen a proposal for some sort of a filter dome over the eruption?
At its base, the cloud isnt so big. It might be cheaper to filter the ash out in
Iceland, than stop flights all over Europe. Think of a huge mesh of cables, supported by helium balloons outside the plume.
Then water could be sprayed into the ash cloud”.
I think it’s easier to find another planet.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:57 pm
I’ll never get that one right, so I came up with EyeFullOfJoKool.
btw… right fine time to be on a Helicopter fleeing the Arctic, sled-pulling Olympic feats aside.
Hey Skipper says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:44 pm
This is from my company’s flight operations manual:
“Flight into a cloud of volcanic ash must be avoided.”
=========================
“Flight into a cloud of volcanic ash must be avoided.”
What part of this statement, made by the engine maker, does nobody seem to understand.
Tremor Graphs of Iceland, anyone?
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/tremor.html
Latest quakes in Iceland:
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/
Zooming in on the Volcano itself:
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/myrjokull.html
I think the most interesting aspect to the eruption of Eyejustajollylocal, is the actual pronunciation of it’s name…. It’s a good thing its not really serious. Otherwise we’d not be able to escape its effects, nor pronounce its name. Indeed a tragedy.
Perhaps BP should just lower a large ‘top hat’ on top of it to plug this leak in the earth?
Or wait. That wouldn’t work. Its apparently 2 million degrees C – or was it F? – according to a world famous Nobel laureate.
Speaking of things that could really blow up, seems there may be much more to the incredible Mann-made hockey stick:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5700&linkbox=true&position=1
Okay, sand and not volcanic dust but……….
I noted that Cairo airport shut down the other day but looking at the reconstruction from the Met Office the cloud is nowhere near the place. All we have had in Cyprus is the usual Sahara dust!
This is all Iceland’s vengeance on the UK for the banking regulators pulling the plug on their bubble-banks.
It’s vaguely reminiscent of the old joke about the most important organ in the body…
Just imagine if a plane were to fly through the ash, and crash.
Then Branson would like a bit (more) of a git.
There’s a reason engine and plane makers don’t specify a safe level of ash. They don’t know. And flying around at 30,000 feet, how would you propose to measure it (on a flight by flight basis) to see if its safe? Oh… oops, sorry, the ash is above limits. Did those engines just stop? Oops. Sorry about that.
Those who complain about the flight bans are off in la-la land, or think that man is strong enough or clever enough to manage and overcome all risks.
Engineering is all about prudent design that includes factors of safety, all built from about 2000 years experience gained in building bridges and buildings that have periodically fallen down and killed people. Aviation is just an extension of the same.
When you don’t know if its safe, you don’t allow a tin tube with 500 people to go there. Who’d want the death toll on their head?
davidmhoffer
You summed it up perfectly, itz a travesty.
Oh, and Brent (above). There’s no point taking on Deltoid. You might as well just pop outside and smack your head into a wall a few times. You’ll get the same pain but get it over and done with a lot faster.
Found in: CRS, Dr.P.H. on May 16, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“Hey ya fellah, yo cool!”
That should do for a “close enough” pronunciation. To pull it off a bit better just provide a bit of drunken slur (not included with this offer, YMMV).
Go to Richard North’s blog and check out:-
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/05/unfinished-business.html
He is absolutely 100% correct. Of course planes shouldn’t fly through ash plumes. But here in the UK we are again at the mercy of the little men and their “computer models”. We have just one plane kitted out with the equipment to actually measure ash concentrations, particle sizes, type of mineral and all the rest. For some strange European reason, that is apparently in France at the moment.
So, if some bearded “scientist” looks at his computer screen, having fed in some data from our trusted and reliable chums The MET Office, and sees “worse than we thought” – then, that’s it! Airports close!
It all seems familiar, somehow.
But in any case why would anyone want some actual unadulterated measurements when their computer can belch out as many finely crafted scenarios as you care to consider?
Surely better to inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people and drive the airline industry into the ground than invest in the proper equipment to take actual measurements?
R. Gates says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:48 pm
But there are no political statements here…
Until yours! So, speak for yourself, and not others.
So you are pleased that thousands of people are very badly inconvenienced by the forces of nature. Well, perhaps you celebrate floods and earthquakes? Or is that somehow different? Is it just because these people are trying to do something that you personally disapprove of?
And as for nature being more powerful than us, yes it is. It also is not impacted at all, at least by all the evidence, by the tiny percentage of a percent of the atmosphere that we are adding in the way of CO2, apart from plants getting more to eat.
There is great hope for even greater accuracy in computer models of the climate judging by the ash cloud scenario
A month ago it closed the whole of Europe, such was the uncertainty of the ash clouds location and effects.
Today the Met office have so improved their forecasts that Gatwick airport can allow outgoing flights but not incoming ones as the Ash cloud is ‘only’ two miles away.
This degree of accuracy and precision has been gained in such a short time scale that I expect a daily forecast of our evolving climate for the next five hundred years will be so good that all debate will be effectively stifled. 🙂
Tonyb
OK, here is how you should pronounce Eyjafjallajokull
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/pronounce-eyjafjallajokull-10392613
or even worse:
It reminds me of “lieutenant” pronounced “leftenant”
I think the kull ending means mountain or some such, but why they pronounced it “kurt” is anybodies guess. Anglosaxon mentality . 🙂
el gordo says: “If Katla blows it will be a trifecta, along with a cool PDO and solar minimum. The AGW signal will disappear forever.”
davidmhoffer says: “I think it would just cause a polarity reversal.”
Let’s face it, the AGW message is harder to forecast than climate.
My money (for the short term at least) is on them using it to get out of jail: “The eruption has masked AGW, which will resume a few years after the volcano has died down. We must not waste this great opportunity to reduce emissions.”.
(Usable for any volcano, even Eyathingy. NB. There is no need for it to be logical.).
I have been using this site to see how the ash is moving
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/DUST/WESTERNEUROPE/index.htm
I also allows the user to look back at previous events.
Last Friday 14 May 2010 shows a large ash cloud over west Scotland.
My wife is flying Dublin-London-Mauritius on Wednesday May 19th. Thanks for the update!
Doug in Seattle says:
May 16, 2010 at 9:42 pm
u.k.(us) says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash.
Actually its the European air regulators who have a zero (or very close to zero) tolerance for ash. Airlines in US fly around volcanic plumes. The problem is one of concentration – not detection. The Euro regulators have adopted something akin to the precautionary principle when it comes to ash, while their American counterparts have examined the risk and have allowed the airlines to set rational thresholds.
A hole in one! Bang on the nail! Bullseye!
Now considering this excellent pyrotechnic display by Mother-Nature, showing her all mighty power to one & all, just how many degrees was it last year that Mr Obama & Mr Brown (ex) were going to limit the world to over the next 90 years? Why are they, or at least Mr Obama, not waving there hands ordering the volcano to “OBEY” & cease!
“u.k.(us) says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash. ”
When does a cloud become a trace or even a figment of a model? Thousands of planes have flown through slight traces of ash since the start of the jet age with no effect. They must have because they didn’t have supercomputers and modellers telling them to avoid imaginary areas, thousands of miles from an eruption. Are you seriously suggesting there is a ‘cloud of ash’ over Heathrow? or Israel or North Africa? As the detection gets more sophisticated they’ll be able to identify ash many thousands of miles away and ban flights. I don’t think that’s what the flight manual meant when it said ‘don’t fly through and ash cloud’! Pilots would have been told to give the visible cloud a miss by a 100 miles or so 10 tears ago. Now it’s 5000 miles!!
What there is is a model suggesting there might be x grams per cubic metre or whatever. Computer says no.
This is nothing more that risk aversion and cya from authorities. And it is very serious.
cheers David
A somewhat alarmist statement by UK aviation expert David Learmount, as reported by the BBC, says that volcanic eruptions from Eyjafjallajokull could continue to disrupt UK air traffic for the next 20 years.
BTW: When spoken by the Microsoft Sam or Anna voices, I believe the spelling:
[A’ya vill lev vich’k] will approximate an audio file of the Icelandic volcano name that someone provided in an earlier article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8685229.stm
Looks like a good time to send over a group of alarmist scientists to start building a geothermal power plant on the mountain.
“Wally the Walrus says:
May 16, 2010 at 11:22 pm
……
When you don’t know if its safe, you don’t allow a tin tube with 500 people to go there. Who’d want the death toll on their head?”
Wally you’ve hit the nail on the head, but it’s the wrong nail. If I had the authority to stop people taking any risk, and I would be blamed if they were killed or injured, then guess what – I’d ban them doing it. A colleague of mine was taking somwe students to a mediterranean island to study coastal stuff. They were all over 21 and had sub aqaua licenses. She banned them from diving ‘because if anything went wrong I’d be blamed’. She had the authority and used it. This is the same syndrome on a larger scale.
The police in the UK now close major motorways for 12 hours so they can investigate road accidents to their satisfaction. They don’t want to be criticised for not doing a ‘perfect’ job. Anyone can abuse thier authority to cover their own arse regardless of the consequences on others.
cheers David
A big “Thank you!” to all who replied with links to quake and tremor sites!
The quake data looks interesting… I notice there’s been a quake right under Katla in the last couple of hours, plus a few under the erupting one.
I checked the Katla pages that have the English disclaimer saying they are for the erupting one, and I did find that a little odd. The data on them is current now, though, and I do see one reason why Katla could be mentioned as it is; the monitoring sites on the page are close enough to the erupting one to be affected.
I’m wondering why the is a corolation between the erupting one and Katla? True, they are close, but I’ve never heard of this kind of sequential eruptions anywhere else. My guess would be that the timing is the key. It appears that the Katla eruptions occur after an Eyjafjallajokull (I had to copy-paste the name, ugh) eruption ends. Could that be becuase the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull causes a deflation of its magma chamber, reducing crustal compressive forces Katla’s and allowing it to fill? Or maybe they share a common magmatic system? I find the latter questionable, because Katla is the more active of the two. (Katla sometimes erupts without being preceded by Eyjafjallajokull). It is all speculation though; we don’t know if every Eyjafjallajokull eruption triggers Katla, just that the last three have.
Katla is about due, historically speaking, and it did show warning signs in 1999, though it has been relatively quiet since.
One silver lining if Katla blows… at least it’s easy to spell and pronounce. 😛
Wally (11:24): After ten weeks of trading ideas and insults with that nest of Warmist vipers on Deltoid, they have exiled me as denialist persona-non-grata.
After much deliberation I conclude that the AGW theory is plausible, and hinges on two premises: (a) That the forcing effect of CO2 dwarfs all others such as solar and volcanic activity (b) That Earth’s climate is governed by unstable equilibrium.
Demolish (a) or (b) and we can stop all this nonsense and go down the pub instead.
Just had a thought as to what to do with all those nuclear weapons Obama wants to get rid of. Sort of like back-burning to stop bushfires 🙂
Brent Hargreaves says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:26 am
Yay!
Mine’s a Guinness!
Arizona CJ: I discovered the Vedur website just a few days before you. Its coloured blobs on the map make the earth tremors very easy to interpret.
I then had a look at the histories of different volacanos, and the cubic kilometres of “tephra” (word for the day!) they have spewed out. Call it a MSHU (Mount Saint Helens Unit). which is 1km3. Eyjafjallajokull scores a piffling fraction of a MSHU; its eastern neighbour Katla scored a 1.0 in 1918 and its northern neighbour Hekla scored an 8 a thousand years ago. To put these in further context, Krakatoa (1883) scored 20 and Pinatubo (1991) scored 10. In 1815 the mighty Tambora (score 100… a hundred Mount Saint Helens!) caused starvation around the world in the 1816 ‘year with no summer’.
Do you see what I see on the Vedur website… little earthquakes on Katla and Hekla? Scary stuff! Are they waking up? I propose we send Patchauri, Gore, Hansen & co to the summit of Hekla to persuade it not to pop.
Historically how long does it take Katla to blow after Eyja?
—
Apparently, the damned thing is going to keep on erupting until the entire Western world learns how to pronounce “Eyjafjallajokull” correctly.
—
—
With the understanding that these expulsions are propelled upward by the release of compressed subterranean gases, have there been estimations of the chemical nature of these gases and the masses (or volumes) thereof?
Beyond the solid ejecta – which will either tumble immediately to the ground and add to the local landscape or get blown away to sift down into the ocean and upon land many hundreds of miles away – there is a contribution to the earth’s atmosphere being made here, and the nature of that addition seems worth considering.
—
Brent Hargreaves
May 16, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Popped over to the link you left, Deltoid, not the most patience souls in town.
I think you’re better off persona non grata, their lack of respect, vindictiveness and poor manners hardly promotes their point of view.
Kudos to Antony and the moderators, we all get heated a times, but its capped by the rules of an open forum.
Thanks for the update. I have Swedish friends that flew back home late last week.
I guess they dodged this eruption OK!
The harmful effects to a turbine engine in a dust or sand storm i.e. wear and reduction of useful life is much worse than the cloud of volcanic plume. The stuff in the volcanic cloud forms a hard glass type substance on the hot turbine blades, thus causing a turbulent airflow that leads to reverse flow [backfire and the engine flames out]
when the turbine cools, the glass under stress shatters and falls off, and the engine restarts as good as new. If you have enough altitude and time, to cool the engines all is well, but a worrying time nontheless. This only happens flying through the concentrated plume, hence the American view to fly around the concentrated plume.
If you can not fly over it or around it, fly under it. The Europeans seem to have taken PC totally timid chicken little approach to all things. Aircraft Engineer from the past where a pair of pliers and a piece of wire still worked.
P.S. And pilots made decisions not computers. It worked fine then.
This could go on for 100 to 1000’s of years what a joke. Solution: put a filter in front of each engine that pushes particles aside/out Engine filters
Re:Arizona CJ says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm
“Would anyone have any links to seismic data for Katla, the neighboring, far larger volcano about 20 miles away?”
My favorite volcano blog is-
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/
Which is inhabited by people that understand this stuff. Look out for Jón Frímann who has a site here-
http://www.simnet.is/jonfr500/earthquake/tremoren.htm
with some seismic data, and other geologists have also posted links to more, plus their views.
“The last three times the current erupting volcano (which i cannot spell) has erupted, Katla has erupted within a year of the smaller volcano’s eruption ending. Katla’s eruptions tend to be far larger, around 10x the current one.”
Correlation doesn’t equal causation though 🙂 Volcanoes seem like climate science and just because we’ve got evidence of prior climate shifts, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re responsible for this one, or Hekla will blow on cue. Helka’s been discussed on the Eruptions blog quite a lot, but the geologists and volcanologists there seem a far more cautious bunch than our global warming doomsday prophets.
Also it’s not just Helka that may be becoming more active, eg Chaiten in Chile’s doing it’s bread rising impression-
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-42.832778,-72.645833&spn=0.1,0.1&t=h&q=-42.832778,-72.645833
for an old image, and-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=43100
for a more recent one showing volcanoes can do deforestation as well as we can, if not better.
Grumbler says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:12 am
“Wally the Walrus says:
May 16, 2010 at 11:22 pm
……
When you don’t know if its safe, you don’t allow a tin tube with 500 people to go there. Who’d want the death toll on their head?”
Wally you’ve hit the nail on the head, but it’s the wrong nail. If I had the authority to stop people taking any risk, and I would be blamed if they were killed or injured, then guess what – I’d ban them doing it. A colleague of mine was taking somwe students to a mediterranean island to study coastal stuff. They were all over 21 and had sub aqaua licenses. She banned them from diving ‘because if anything went wrong I’d be blamed’. She had the authority and used it. This is the same syndrome on a larger scale.
The police in the UK now close major motorways for 12 hours so they can investigate road accidents to their satisfaction. They don’t want to be criticised for not doing a ‘perfect’ job. Anyone can abuse thier authority to cover their own arse regardless of the consequences on others.
cheers David
These kind of people would sue their Mothers for giving birth to them, since the risk of eventually dying is 100%.
A–How about animations of
previous met ash cloud projections
compared to actual ash cloud results?
B–Highways have expansion joints–
perhaps volcanoes are located on the
earth’s expansion joints–
as the earth surface cools —
the surface shrinks and the
joints pull apart releasing magama.
Was 1980 a cool period?
C–Current Seismic results–
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/grf.gif
is the red( 0.5 to 1.0 Hz)
the most predictive
pre-eruption frequency?–
it does seems to be rising —
Ed Caryl says:
May 16, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Arizona CJ
check this story:
http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/conflicting-data-on-icelandic-volcano-katla-update-5210/
I find no earthquake data for on-shore Iceland for the last 30 days. Someone is trying to prevent panic.
_______________________________________________________________________
There was just a minor (under 3) earthquake at the Myrdalsjokull glacier where Katla is located.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/
Jøkull means glacier in old norse. Icelandic is the modern version of old norse (modern norwegian is more like danish).
Katla is sometimes spelt Kolla on old Icelandic reports. Icelandic “ll” is pronounced “dl” or “tl”. That makes our friend “Ai ya fiat la yoh khut” . Simples.
If “Eyjafjallajokull” were in the Welsh, of course, many more people would have been blinded by flying spittle than ash and aerosol clouds.
BA chief executive Mr Walsh said: “I am very concerned that we have decisions on opening and closing of airports based on a theoretical model.
“There was no evidence of ash in the skies over London today yet Heathrow was closed.”
He added that airlines flew safely in other parts of the world where there was volcanic activity, saying: “If we can do it in every other part of the world, I can assure you we can do it in the UK as well.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8685913.stm
Mr Walsh clearly does not understand how good the models are which the Met Office produce and which are clearly capable of making extremely accurate weather and climate predictions.
Just because there was no volcanic ash over London does not mean that the models are wrong?
But the beauty of it all is that they have overplayed their hand. If Al Gore preaches a coming global ice age due to human activity, we can just find a copy of his movie. Al Gore cannot flip-flop and be taken seriously. And thanks to the internet, what these other scientists said is permanent. Even if the original articles and papers that has their fire and brimstone sermons disappear, there will always be articles and blog posts that quote from those articles, and which scientists have no control over. We didn’t have the internet in its current form the last time scientists preached doom. All they needed is time to cover their tracks. Not true anymore.
What these scientists are more likely to do is continue the mantra but say volcanoes put it on hold for a while. Unfortunately for them, if that happens, people with their short attention span and knee-jerk reactions will move on and quickly forget. So the next logical conclusion after that is for them to move on and blame some other problem not related to climate change on humans.
If Katla blows, next winter could be extremely intresting…..
I made it in and out of Shannon Ireland in the past week. On the way out of NY’s JFK airport, we flew up to northern Canada and then across Greenland (great views of the ice leaving the Arctic Ocean through the strait between Greenland and Iceland–you can really see the currents as they carry ice), then southeast across the middle of Iceland, making landfall over the northern Highlands of Scotland. We came into Ireland over Northern Ireland, and then crossed the country to the southwest before landing in Shannon. Never could see anything over Iceland that looked like a volcano erupting, but I guess we were pretty far north of it. Also some clouds–it was not completely clear.
On the way home yesterday, we flew south west out of Shannon quite a ways out into the Atlantic before turning northwest. Our track across the Atlantic looks like an S.
The airlines seem to be working things out as best they can under the circumstances.
Doug in Seattle says:
May 16, 2010 at 9:42 pm
u.k.(us) says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I may be mistaken, but I believe jet engines have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to volcanic ash.
Actually its the European air regulators who have a zero (or very close to zero) tolerance for ash. Airlines in US fly around volcanic plumes. The problem is one of concentration – not detection. The Euro regulators have adopted something akin to the precautionary principle when it comes to ash, while their American counterparts have examined the risk and have allowed the airlines to set rational thresholds.
Yet Continental cancelled their flights from Newark to Edinbugh for two days before UK CAA closed Scottish airspace. Not so easy seeing this and avoiding it at night, it didn’t exactly disperse much either!
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T101261155
Who pays for the volcano’s carbon credits?
tonyb says:
May 17, 2010 at 12:24 am
There is great hope for even greater accuracy in computer models of the climate judging by the ash cloud scenario
A month ago it closed the whole of Europe, such was the uncertainty of the ash clouds location and effects.
Today the Met office have so improved their forecasts that Gatwick airport can allow outgoing flights but not incoming ones as the Ash cloud is ‘only’ two miles away.
This degree of accuracy and precision has been gained in such a short time scale that I expect a daily forecast of our evolving climate for the next five hundred years will be so good that all debate will be effectively stifled. 🙂
No you have it backwards, the tolerance as of a couple of months ago was to avoid any airspace with ash. Following the earlier closure the operators agreed a laxer standard, now the maps only show airspace that meets that standard. Bear in mind that the European continental airspace is covered by the Toulouse VAAC not London so it must have been their advice that shut down Spanish airspace and Italian airspace last week.
With this ash cloud moving north, I predict that the added ash and soot to the Arctic Ice Cap will result in a much lower Summer minimum ice coverage.
Arizona CJ,
A seismic link for Iceland:
http://en.vedur.is/#tab=skjalftar
Mike Jonas 12:53
I think everyone should just use your pronunciation for the volcano and forget all others.” Eyathingy”
Carsten Arnholm, Norway says:
May 17, 2010 at 5:03 am
“Jøkull means glacier in old norse.” In fact, you had to learn old norse in college back in the 70’ties. I did. Luckily the whole book I got was already translated by the guy using it before me.
A bit OT, but maybe some of you guys are interested in history?
As you know most people on Island come from Norway. When Norway was tranformed from an area with lots of small Viking chieftains, into one kingdom, there was lots of fighting. If you murdered the wrong person , you could be declared “unwanted”. Then it was time to go to Iceland. Whole villages went.
I visited “Borg”, a big viking community in Northern Norway last summer.
They all went to Iceland. When Olav “the holy” took over, you had a choce; Convert to Christianity, or get your head chopped off. Or go to Iceland. Of course that means that all Norwegians today are descendants of the easy going ones who didnt loose their head, or go to Iceland.
Like me. Today its the National Holiday in Norway. We celebrate getting rid of the Dane’s nobility rulers. I think thats why Iceland is steering the cloud outside Norway.
Stacey says:
May 17, 2010 at 5:33 am
BA chief executive Mr Walsh said: “I am very concerned that we have decisions on opening and closing of airports based on a theoretical model.
“There was no evidence of ash in the skies over London today yet Heathrow was closed.”
He added that airlines flew safely in other parts of the world where there was volcanic activity, saying: “If we can do it in every other part of the world, I can assure you we can do it in the UK as well.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8685913.stm
Mr Walsh clearly does not understand how good the models are which the Met Office produce and which are clearly capable of making extremely accurate weather and climate predictions.
Just because there was no volcanic ash over London does not mean that the models are wrong?
He must have missed the satellite images showing a cloud of ash over the UK, including Heathrow! (EUMETSAT)
They’re not opening and closing based on theoretical models, it’s based on actual observations.
Wade says:
May 17, 2010 at 6:00 am
davidmhoffer says:
I think it would just cause a polarity reversal. Jones, Mann, Hanson and the rest of the climate muppets would run the new data in their models and announce that the combination of ash and human emissions would enhance negative feedbacks resulting in an ice age.>>
Wade;
But the beauty of it all is that they have overplayed their hand. If Al Gore preaches a coming global ice age due to human activity, we can just find a copy of his movie.>>
You have no idea the depths to which the “perception managers” will sink, the boldness of their lies, the quickness with which the politicians with an agenda will sweep aside the past or the limited time span of the masses in remembering what was said only a few years before (sadly for many, if they were aware at all).
Old and cynical I may be, but it comes from observation….
Brent Hargreaves says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:26 am
“…After much deliberation I conclude that the AGW theory is plausible, and hinges on two premises: (a) That the forcing effect of CO2 dwarfs all others such as solar and volcanic activity (b) That Earth’s climate is governed by unstable equilibrium.
Demolish (a) or (b) and we can stop all this nonsense and go down the pub instead.”
__________________________________________________________________________
(a) That the forcing effect of CO2 dwarfs all others such as solar and volcanic activity Notice how H2O in all its various forms is left out of this statement.
As Bob Tisdale would say “It’s water stupid!” or Willis “The Thermostat Hypothesis is that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth.”
Only by stating CO2 “drives” changes in water can the warmists get their models to “work”
Water trumps CO2
1) in the amount present in the atmosphere
2) the number and width of the absorption bands soaking up energy from sun and earth
3) the amount of earth surface it covers (70%)
4) the amount of heat it absorbs and retains compared to the atmosphere
5) its effects on the amount of heat that reaches the earth thanks to absorption and reflection( albedo)
Water is THE big player in the climate game NOT CO2, but the politicians can not regulate and tax water as easily so CO2 had to be “linked” to the changes in climate caused by water.
Steve,
I read elsewhere (and can’t find it now) that this volcano last erupted during the Dalton, and the eruption preceding that was about 200 years earlier, placing it in the Maunder.
????
”There is also a curiousity on the ice cap above the Katla volcano…
That is Mýrdalsjökull – under it sleeps Katla – she is a meanie.
Now, look closely at the photo.
See the dimples in the ice.
Those are over the crater… almost like there is a heat source under the ice
But, did they use to be there?
Or are they new?
I don’t know for sure….”
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2010/04/iceland_-_kakali.php
Wade says:
May 17, 2010 at 6:00 am
davidmhoffer says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:48 pm
el gordo says:
May 16, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I think it would just cause a polarity reversal. Jones, Mann, Hanson and the rest of the climate muppets would run the new data in their models and announce that the combination of ash and human emissions would enhance negative feedbacks resulting in an ice age…..
What these scientists are more likely to do is continue the mantra but say volcanoes put it on hold for a while. Unfortunately for them, if that happens, people with their short attention span and knee-jerk reactions will move on and quickly forget. So the next logical conclusion after that is for them to move on and blame some other problem not related to climate change on humans.
_________________________________________________________________________
The next panic has already been set-up. Food shortages: I will not go into it again at length but everything is just about in place. The final domino was scheduled to be set in 2009 but the American farmers fought back. Now “they” have reorganized and are trying again to get that final domino set in place. (I bring this up because I want to continue to eat.)
see:
The Festering Fraud Behind Food Safety Reform
History
New regs, NAIS is back
Farm Wars
NAIS Stinks
“Eye-Full” a tower in France.
“Eye-Kull” a volcano in Iceland.
_________________
You’ve heard of ‘New Math’, well this is ‘New English’ (It’s a ‘Living Language’ thing.)
“Phil. says:
May 17, 2010 at 6:57 am
Stacey says:
May 17, 2010 at 5:33 am
BA chief executive Mr Walsh said: “I am very concerned that we have decisions on opening and closing of airports based on a theoretical model.
“There was no evidence of ash in the skies over London today yet Heathrow was closed.”
He added that airlines flew safely in other parts of the world where there was volcanic activity, saying: “If we can do it in every other part of the world, I can assure you we can do it in the UK as well.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8685913.stm
Mr Walsh clearly does not understand how good the models are which the Met Office produce and which are clearly capable of making extremely accurate weather and climate predictions.
Just because there was no volcanic ash over London does not mean that the models are wrong?
He must have missed the satellite images showing a cloud of ash over the UK, including Heathrow! (EUMETSAT)
They’re not opening and closing based on theoretical models, it’s based on actual observations.”
You make the mistake of thinking it’s a visible ash cloud i.e. the sort you should avoid. If you read the EUMETSAT site it talks of satellite sensors and software. They are just ‘images’ of slight traces. I live in the south of England and there is no ash cloud. If it wasn’t for the super duper technology we wouldn’t even know it was there.
Go to
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/latestImages.html
and look at ‘vis 0.6’ /color/ western europe and show me the cloud?
You are looking at RGB composites which are enhanced and computerised.
cheers David
The glacier around Eyjafjallajokull is showing a dramatic loss of ice, which is no doubt due to all the CO2 being emitted from the volcano.
Einstein had it wrong. The correct formula is E = CO2C^2
JER0ME says:
May 17, 2010 at 12:23 am
R. Gates says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Funny how a simple volcanic eruption can spawn such an equally volcanic eruption of political [self-snip].
But there are no political statements here…
I personally find it refreshing that volcanoes can cause such a disruption in air travel in our modern times…as though air-travel was some basic human right as opposed to an incredible luxury. Nature has a way of reminding us who ultimately is in charge…
——-
Nothing political here at all…in fact, quite a-political. And I never rejoice at human suffering, but I don’t consider some Brits getting stuck for an extra few days of holiday on the Coasta Del Sol as a big human suffering. I simply find it refreshing when nature reminds us what is really important and what is not. Jet Travel is a huge luxury and if a volcano grounds a few jet-setters now than then so much the better!
What keeps the AGW scam alive is greedy politicians who want to get more tax money with which to buy more votes.
Anything the bleeding heart liberals (and a goodly number of other politicians) hate to see is people who actually work hard and earn their money spend their hard earned money the way the earners want to spend it. The politicians always have “more worthy” things to spend it on.
Dr Haraldur Sigurdsson a well known volcanologist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haraldur_Sigurdsson ) has been writing almost daily on his blog about the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull. See http://vulkan.blog.is/blog/vulkan/
Most of you may not understand much however because Haraldur is writing in Icelandic 🙂
Ed Caryl says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Yes I meant Yellowstone.
Gail Combs (07:45): You wrote: “(a) That the forcing effect of CO2 dwarfs all others such as solar and volcanic activity. Notice how H2O in all its various forms is left out of this statement?” and “It’s water stupid!”
You’re right, Gail, and water does not feature in the IPCC’s table entitled ‘Radiative Forcing of Climate 1750-2000’ (have a look at Ch.2 p.203). The idea that water is the ‘damper’ which prevents positive feedback (unstable equilibrium) is very pronising. If you have looked into this area, why not mull it over with the guys at Deltoid? The abusive ones can be quite annoying, but the odd Warmist is prepared to talk physics rather than trade insults.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php
(As they say in Mission Impossible: ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it’!)
I’m sure that they’d be pleased to meet you. Bonne chance et bon courage!
@ Grumbler
Thank you David for clearing that up. I did not think that Mr Walsh would be so daft as to tell a complete untruth at this time and after all BA at least were proactive the last time the civil servants panicked? BA at least sent some planes up?
The Met office is not fit for purpose.
Pascvaks says (May 17, 2010 at 8:33 am): ‘“Eye-Full” a tower in France.
“Eye-Kull” a volcano in Iceland.’
Now that the volcano is famous, I suggest it do as many Hollywood celebrities have done and change its name to something that more easily rolls off the tongue (e.g. Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff became “Doris Day”, Arnold Schwarzenegger became…uh…”Governor of California”, and so on).
Of the two suggestions above, I personally favor “Eye-Full”, which it actually is. While it’s likely to be sued by the Eifel Tower, that’s not necessarily a drawback, as there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
I live in the centre of UK and I awoke to a clear bright day, the sky was crystal clear no sign of any dust on my polished car that was left out all night.
But the “invisible” volcanic ash is back! and no flights today! It really must be dangerous stuff because even though you cannot see it, no matter how hard you try, it requires all aircraft to be grounded.
I did have disturbing thoughts that when the icelandic and other volcanoes around the world have erupted in the recent past that aircraft have just kept on flying but avoiding the big black cloud, didn’t anyone realiose the danger.
The eruptions have been getting into the lower stratosphere again. Watching the farmers struggle with flooding and late spring cold, I only hope the crop maturing heat units from the sun are adequate to get the job done this summer.
“Sahara sand surprise over Wales”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7206972.stm
“People in parts of south Wales woke to find their cars and houses covered in dust which has come all the way from the Sahara Desert.”
The story is from 2008 but just to point out that storms in the Sahara transport vast amounts of dust over Europe without any disruption to air traffic.
What an insulting post, R. Gates.
I have a co-worker here, in Calgary, whose mother has taken ill in the UK. He has been unable to get to see her. His schedule doesn’t allow him to jet in and out whenever the skies happen to be opened up. He’s already had BA refund one round trip ticket, and this week’s ticket is again being refunded.
So by your logic, it’s “so much the better” that Mr. Jet-set instructor here can’t see his mother for what might be the last time.
Really, your stereotypes and prejudice about who flies and why is quite disgusting.
I have asked this before but no one has come forth with a name. There was a climatologist in the mid 80’s predicting global cooling due to coming vulcanism. He is long gone as he was in his 80’s back then. His theory was that orbital changes, not unlike the Milankovitch cycles, not only caused cooling in themselves but caused increased vulcanism due to changing tidal forces on the Earth’s magma which produced the increased vulcanism. He put on very interesting and entertaining corporate presentations of which I attended two. Anyone remember his name? I would like to look back at some of his work if it can be found. Of course it would only take one significant eruption of my neighbor in Yellowstone to set off another ice age.
Had St Helens blown two hours later than it did, hundreds of more people would have died.
At 10 am on that Sunday, a convoy of people was to be led into Spirit Lake by the Sheriff’s Department.
The eruption occurred at 8:32 am and the initiating landslide covered Spirit Lake.
Thinking about Katla, it could always be far worse than it has been in history and that is a case that must be considered.
R. Gates says:
“Jet Travel is a huge luxury and if a volcano grounds a few jet-setters now than then so much the better!”
Well then Mr Gates, lets hope it stops Mr. Gore’s Jet too!
And hopefully it will disturb one of your own holiday-trips some day.
@jorge says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:51 pm
An inconvenient fact, not to be confused with “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was also a spewing of hot, noxious gases from an ash hole.
classic, quote of the week.
The good the bad and the ugly–
http://iceagenow.com/Many_more_Iceland_volcanoes_seem_to_be_stirring.htm
If iceland volcanoes have a go
and shut down northern hemisphere
air travel for a few decades–
consumption of jet fuel will be reduced
but heating oil and bunker oil usage will increase–
–short gasoline–
long heating oil.
And those nifty microtremors are doing their dance–
Current Seismic results–
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/grf.gif
the red( 0.5 to 1.0 Hz)
is the most predictive
pre-eruption frequency–
For jet engines, an air filter wouldn’t work. Filters clog up, and if you consider the tiny size of particles involved you can imagine how small the filter “mesh” would have to be. Have you noticed how much a HEPA filter restricts a vacuum cleaner? Filtration like that would be unacceptable.
You need a diverter/deflector-type arrangement. As a simple form for visualization, picture a cone with the point going forward, and the air is being sucked out of a tube going into the side of the cone. Ash particles would move over the cone along with the air molecules. When they reach the open base of the cone, the light air molecules can easily go around the edge and then into the tube, while the heavier ash particles with more momentum will continue rearwards in the air stream.
Some energy is required to make this work since the airflow over the cone tries to suck the air out of the tube into the cone (Bernoulli’s principle, Venturi effect, etc). You need a driven system that is actively sucking in the air, and commercial jet engines are designed with wide open air intakes for efficiency. Also with too much suction you will suck in the particles as well, thus you will need a large enough area for the air intake to have just enough suction to get the needed air in with at a low enough amount of pressure/force/velocity (pick which terms you think apply) that the particles don’t come in as well.
Without examining the details, which involve irritatingly complex math, a retrofit of existing engines might be a large cone (normal aerodynamic curved side) that is mounted around the front, covering it and extending so far back, with a wide enough open space between cone and engine for needed air intake. That should keep the ash from getting in, and also help with the bird strike problem. Major Question Numero Uno is if the engines have enough suction. If so, then comes the reduced efficiency calculations. When the wind tunnel results come in (unless they are somehow completely confident with their computer models) they can calculate the extra costs and benefits of having planes that are always good to fly in an area where there might be volcanic ash, although not directly through a plume as there are other sandblasting-type effects, as opposed to the current “Maybe we’ll get lucky and can fly today!” system with better fuel mileage.
From here: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/05/basic-survival-plan.html
Ed Caryl, try this site for recent earthquake activity in Iceland. Translated from Icelandic into English (automated, not by me!)
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/viku/sidasta/
Brent Hargreaves says:
May 17, 2010 at 11:08 am
…. If you have looked into this area, why not mull it over with the guys at Deltoid? The abusive ones can be quite annoying, but the odd Warmist is prepared to talk physics rather than trade insults….
(As they say in Mission Impossible: ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it’!)
I’m sure that they’d be pleased to meet you. Bonne chance et bon courage!
____________________________________________________________________
I am just a lowly chemist (hubby is the physicist) so I am not real strong in arguing the nitty gritty of physics. However a look at this graph was enough to convince me CO2 could only be a bit player. CO2 is just a gas, present in minor concentrations and has only one effect. H2O on the other hand covers 70% of the earth and has major effects, both positive and negative, as snow, ice and in various forms of vapor. You would have to be willfully blind to think CO2 could out muscle the effects of water. (Reminds me of bambi and godzilla ) Heck climate science doesn’t have a really decent handle on clouds yet or where the “missing energy” is that Trenberth is looking for in the ocean so how could climate science possibly be “settled”?
M White says:
May 17, 2010 at 12:28 pm
“Sahara sand surprise over Wales”
BBC short on news M White. Nothing at all unusual about that. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan
Its not unusual for Sahara sand to make it to the U.S.A.
Jim G says:
May 17, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Of course it would only take one significant eruption of my neighbor in Yellowstone to set off another ice age.”
No worries there. Park regulations forbid that. It would disturb the bears.
The solution is quite simple; Just drop a decent sized nuke down the chimney and relieve the venturi pressure.
Collateral damage? Nah! Those Icelanders don’t repay their debts right?
FergalR says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:02 pm
“They can’t predict the weather 4 days hence. They know the weather will be catastrophic 100 years from now.”
Who is “they”? The general public? Because if it’s the general public, you’d be right. Ask any person from the general public to give you their forecast of the weather in their town four days hence. And then compare that forecast with the forecast of a weather company for four days hence. Nine times out of ten, the weather company is going to be a lot more accurate than Joe Public. No, they’re not always right because meteorology is one of the most complex scientific disciplines known to man. Bearing that in mind, it’s rather remarkable how accurate meteorologists are.
The other thing wrong with your statement is that you’re confusing climate with weather. Even if scientists can’t accurately forecast weather 4 days down the track (something which is not generally true in any case), that would NOT be an argument against being able to forecast the climate ten years later, since the science behind the two is quite different. One is about short-term variations in averages, whereas the other is about averages.
#
Anthony G says:
May 18, 2010 at 4:32 am
“…..The other thing wrong with your statement is that you’re confusing climate with weather. Even if scientists can’t accurately forecast weather 4 days down the track (something which is not generally true in any case), that would NOT be an argument against being able to forecast the climate ten years later, since the science behind the two is quite different. One is about short-term variations in averages, whereas the other is about averages.”
__________________________________________________________________________
It is not about “short-term variations in averages” vs “about averages”
The problem is iterations. The data from the first go of prediction is fed back into the computer for a second go and that for the third go. Since it is all predicting further and further into the future a small error is magnified. This graph show the increasing spread in a variety of weather models. Also note the spread allows the future to be matched to one of the models so a media interview can truthfully say “THE” model was accurate.
Closer to home, I see there has been a report of a small swarm of earthquakes on the west side of Mount Hood in Oregon.
http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story/Swarm-of-small-earthquakes-hit-Mt-Hood/oh-ce10s-kmRmkQbdO_pSw.cspx
kwik says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:53 pm
R. Gates says:
“Jet Travel is a huge luxury and if a volcano grounds a few jet-setters now than then so much the better!”
Well then Mr Gates, lets hope it stops Mr. Gore’s Jet too!
And hopefully it will disturb one of your own holiday-trips some day.
___________________
To quote the bible:
Matthew 5:45 (King James Version)
“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
———–
I don’t give a whit what happens to Al Gore and his travel plans, and as for myself, I fully accept whatever nature brings.
CodeTech says:
May 17, 2010 at 1:10 pm
“So by your logic, it’s “so much the better” that Mr. Jet-set instructor here can’t see his mother for what might be the last time.
Really, your stereotypes and prejudice about who flies and why is quite disgusting.”
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Yes, lots of peoples plans have been disrupted by the volcano, from visiting sick relatives to weddings, funerals, business meetings, and on and on. But again, the point is that jet-travel is a luxury, not a basic human right. When a third of the planet goes to bed hungry every night, it’s hard for me to cry any tears over someone who can’t fly off in a jet at 30,000 feet for travel– regardless of the reason. Just doesn’t get much sympathy from me overall. As far as your jet-set instructor goes, I think the wisdom that what passed to me years ago would be in order…treat each parting with a loved one as the last parting, and each moment with them as precious.
R. Gates says:
May 18, 2010 at 11:49 am
“But again, the point is that jet-travel is a luxury, not a basic human right.”
Aha, now we are getting close to the agenda….You probably want a Government commitee to decide who is to use a jet, and who is not?
Who will guard the committee ? You?
Or how do you want to solve it, different to how it is today? A free world where you can accumulate wealth through work, and fly when you can afford it?
Actually, if I had had any respect for R. Gates that would definitely have ended it.
My last job was ALL air travel. I was on a plane typically 3-4 times a week for years. Gee… can’t pay the mortgage when that stops.
Interesting ashfall pics and comments here that gives you some perspective on this thing… like the equivalent weight in ash of 100 Ford F-150 pick-ups being blasted into the air in one second!
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2010/05/more_on_eyjafjallajokull_and_t.php
R. Gates says on May 18, 2010 at 11:49 am
Ahhh, yes, the “I’m superior to you because I care about the little children and the poor and the weak” gambit.
kwik says:
“A free world where you can accumulate wealth through work, and fly when you can afford it?”
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Actually nope. The mere accumulation of wealth doesn’t give you the right to spend it any way you want. Every action (i.e. purchase you make) is not made in a bubble. No man (or woman) is an island unto themselves. Overall, jet travel is pretty bad for the environment. A little dent in air travel due to a volcano is a good thing.
And no, the government should not decide who gets to travel. The less government decides anything the better.
BS. That is just your opinion. Worthless.
Only because you think your opinion has more value than anyone else’s lives.
Either way, you are completely in error.
[sarc] Yeah, CodeTech, air travel is a luxury, like organ transplants, and if someone dies because the plane their heart transplant was going to fly on is grounded unnecessarily, why should anyone shed any tears? Life is a luxury – it’s not like anyone has a right to it. [/sarcoff]
I doubt the people one normally thinks of as “jet-setters” are being inconvenienced much unlike the poor folks traveling coach and trying to purchase discount tickets in advance and get time off their jobs.
As for R.Gates parting from any “loved ones” as though it is the last time so no regrets: it reminds me of the story of Lenin with his wife’s mother.
Lenin’s wife had been nursing her mother who was very ill, and told Lenin to wake her if her mother needed her. She woke up and found her mother dead, and asked Lenin why he had not woken her when her mother was dying. Lenin replied, “She didn’t need you. She was dying.” Something wrong with that guy…