Indonesia Volcano’s Eruptions Stump Scientists
By Lauren Frayer, AOL News
Eruptions from Indonesia’s ferocious Mount Merapi keep getting worse, prompting more villagers to run for their lives and puzzling scientists trying to decipher Mother Nature’s plans.
Hot ash clouds are sweeping across central Java, shooting up to six miles into the sky and snarling local air traffic. Today’s booming eruptions have been the strongest since Merapi—whose name means “Mountain of Fire” in Javanese—exploded on Oct. 26, volcanologist Kurniadi Rinekso told Agence France-Presse.
Indonesian officials announced five more deaths from the suffocating lava and smoke, raising Merapi’s total death toll to at least 44, CNN reported. Nearly 75,000 people are huddled in evacuation shelters far from their livelihoods, and it doesn’t look as if they’ll be able to return home anytime soon.
“It looks like we may be entering an even worse stage,” state volcanologist Surono told The Associated Press. After predicting earlier this week that eruptions would ease up, scientists are throwing up their hands as they are confronted today with eruptions three times stronger than expected. “We have no idea what’s happening now,” Surono said.
Merapi’s ash prompted global concern today when a Qantas airliner suffered engine failure after takeoff from Singapore’s airport. The incident occurred several hundred miles away from Merapi, and officials say they’re still investigating, but it appears unlikely that volcanic ash could have affected the plane. The A380 managed an emergency landing back in Singapore, and no one was hurt.
The latest eruptions have also been accompanied by tremors, a sign that energy is still pent up inside the volcano and unable to escape, the head of the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center, Subandrio, told The Jakarta Post.
“This can [also] be seen from the hot clouds that have been rising from the mountain’s peak,” he said.
Indonesia’s island archipelago sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where the world’s most volatile fault lines lie deep under the earth’s crust. Earthquakes and volcanoes are common there along the eastern and western Pacific rims.
See story here.
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Reports from the Global Volcanism Program:
According to the Darwin VAAC, ground-based reports indicated an eruption from Merapi on 28 October. Cloud cover prevented satellite observations. CVGHM reported that two pyroclastic flows occurred on 30 October. According to a news article, ash fell in Yogyakarta, 30 km SSW, causing low visibility. CVGHM noted four pyroclastic flows the next day.
On 1 November an eruption began mid-morning with a low-frequency earthquake and avalanches. About seven pyroclastic flows occurred during the next few hours, traveling SSE a maximum distance of 4 km. A gas-and-ash plume rose 1.5 km above the crater and drifted E and N. CVGHM recommended that evacuees from several communities within a 10-km radius should continue to stay in shelters or safe areas. The Darwin VAAC reported that a possible eruption on 1 November produced an ash plume that rose to an altitude of 6.1 km (20,000 ft) a.s.l., according to ground-based reports, analyses of satellite imagery, and web camera views. On 2 November an ash plume was seen in satellite imagery drifting 75 km N at an altitude of 6.1 km (20,000 ft) a.s.l. News outlets noted diversions and cancellations of flights in and out of the Solo (40 km E) and Yogyakarta airports. The Alert Level remained at 4 (on a scale of 1-4).
CVGHM reported 26 pyroclastic flows on 2 November. A mid-day report on 3 November stated that 38 pyroclastic flows occurred during the first 12 hours of the day. An observer from the Kaliurang post saw 19 of those 38 flows travel 4 km S. Plumes from the pyroclastic flows rose 1.2 km, although dense fog made visual observations difficult. Ashfall was noted in some nearby areas.
Geologic Summary. Merapi, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, lies in one of the world’s most densely populated areas and dominates the landscape immediately N of the major city of Yogyakarta. The steep-sided modern Merapi edifice, its upper part unvegetated due to frequent eruptive activity, was constructed to the SW of an arcuate scarp cutting the eroded older Batulawang volcano. Pyroclastic flows and lahars accompanying growth and collapse of the steep-sided active summit lava dome have devastated cultivated and inhabited lands on the volcano’s western-to-southern flanks and caused many fatalities during historical time. The volcano is the object of extensive monitoring efforts by the Merapi Volcano Observatory (MVO).
Sources: Center of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM), Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC), CNN, BBC News
It’s too bad volcanoes are so deadly, because they’re so frickin’ cool.
Is there enough going up 6kms to cause any significant ash-gas cover to spread out for any global cooling…or is it too small at present? Any takers!
If the warmists claim they’ve recorded a reduction in ‘global average temperature’ (meaningless that it is) as a result of the emissions from this and other recent volcanoes, they will undoubtedly lobby their respective governments to increase funding of the projects to pollute the stratosphere with sulphur.
We can hear it already …. “2010 would have been the warmist year ever … except for the volcanic eruption of mount excusus” … sorry merry pee.
Wow! Could this be a BIG ONE we’re going to see? It’s going to kill a lot more than 44 people if it is.
We’ll see what actually happens around the world if we get a “year without a summer” out of this, and my guess is that it wouldn’t be pretty.
And now the child of Krakatau is making noise too:
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/increased-volcanic-activity-seen-at-indonesias-mount-anak-krakatau_100453970.html
I’m going to be working in Indonesia in the New Year and will be flying from Jakarta east to Irian Jaya. If Merapi is still going I’ll get a good view!
Poor people.
Ash cloud reported up to 16km according to Australian BoM advisory (Pinatubo topped out at 40km). Lots of SO2 since yesterday but probably not high enough to cool much.
http://wdc.dlr.de/data_lib/METOP-A/GOME2/L3/latest/LATEST.GOME2.L3.COMP.SO2.GL.gif
Fortunately the RSS and UAH temps have already started their decline. You can be certain that further declines will be blamed on this volcano. Expect to see the word “masked” attached to the word “warming,” over the next two years.
If this does a Krakatoa or a Mt St Helens, this could interesting indeed. There would be a huge loss of life, probably bigger than the Boxing Day tsunami toll, but the ash ejecta into the stratosphere could also cause major disruption to the weather and I dobt anyone will be travelling by air much. Krakatoa gave spectacular sunsets for a year – that much ash is bound to hit air travel.
I look forward to CRU’s building this into their models!
“H.R. says:
November 5, 2010 at 1:58 am”
The Australian summer, at least on the east coast, is not looking to be too hot this year. Last year was, mostly, a year without a summer too, according to the natives (As well as being the second summer without flys). There is a lot of activity around this side of the Rim of Fire however.
What’s happening in Iceland?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103135251.htm
Volcanoes Have Shifted Asian Rainfall
ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2010) — Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air. Some suspect that extended “volcanic winters” from gigantic blowups helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals. In the summer following Indonesia’s 1815 Tambora eruption, frost wrecked crops as far off as New England, and the 1991 blowout of the Philippines’ Mount Pinatubo lowered average global temperatures by 0.7 degrees F — enough to mask the effects of manmade greenhouse gases for a year or so.
enough to mask the effects of manmade greenhouse gases for a year or so.
The requisite insistence of a presence of CAGW. They could not simply say…. “enough to drop temperatures to…..”
Such methods reflect advocacy, not science.
Actually, from a link I followed on an earlier topic post, the Indonesian govt is currently watching 40 volcanoes.
Add to that Mt. Mt. Mayon in the Philippines, the one up in eastern Russia, and the trio in Alaska acting up…it could get interesting.
In a bad way.
This is a worry…
“Indonesia Volcano’s Eruptions Stump Scientists”
An active volcano erupts and it “stumps” scientists? Is this real? An active volcano on the Rim of Fire?
When Mt Ruhapeu erupted in New Zealand in 1995 I sure the hell wasn’t stumped when I found out it is a VERY active volcanic region.
Where can I get a research grant, I can be “stumped” by anything but the bleeding obvious?
Question.
Could the increasing pressure on the planets surface be causing an increase in eruptions?
Or is it a case of same amount of eruptions, just some more close to populations?
The AOL news story includes the phrase “suffocating lava”. If lava catches you, I don’t think you’re dying from suffocation.
Mike Haseler says: “mount excusus”
Thanks. I enjoyed that.
Glenn says:
November 5, 2010 at 3:23 am
I think perhaps the problem is that Mother Nature doesn’t make plans, she kinda goes with the flow. I think there’s something in that for all of us.
I think you meant “she kinda goes with the pyroclastic flow”! :-))
Now, if those silly Indonesian/Asian chaps & chapesses took a leaf out of the Union of Eurpoean Socialist Republics/Peoples Democratic Republic of the European Union book, the entire air space could be shut down for months on end if they used the right puter model!!!!!!
On a more serious note, the loss of life is tragic by any standards, but should this be a foretaste of things to come, perhaps a tragedy of some magnitude might just bring things home to the witless socialist greens that Mother Nature rules the planet, not humn beings, sure we’ve done some pretty stupid things in the past, life is a learning curve after all, but we cannot predict the future with any real certainty, but just be prepared to adapt to it as we have done for around 3 million years or so! After all, we’re better equipped now to do so than at any time before. It would seem that the loss of around 250,000 (if indeed that was the likely number) human lives in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, shortly before 1am UTC, was not enough to satisfy those who think man can control his global environment! UTC? There was a time when it was GMT. The French just can’t get over it can they, they’re such bad losers, Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), Agincourt (1415), Quebec (1775), Peninsular War(1808-14), Trafalgar (1805) Waterloo (1815) (still trying to prevent a single European market), 2003 Rugby World Cup semi-final, 2007 Rugby World Cup semi-final, 2009 Six Nations demolition at Twickers (the dvd player’s worn out)! They really should just learn to take it on the chin you know, we Brits have had to! Oh for the Thin Red Line. (We should never have lost that revolution of the Virginian Colonies, but I must say it worked out rather well in the end I think) 🙂
Height of ash column is more to do with tropical cu-nim activity than eruption energy.
Why so much billions are being spent on studying the (imaginary) effect of a few ppm increase in atmospheric CO2, which has never really killed anybody, but practically nothing is heard about the real killers…earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions? The latest tsunami of two weeks ago killed hunderds of people, following the hundreds of thousands killed in the great Tsunami of Boxing day 2004.
The only times humanity suffered was not during global warmings, (on the contrary, society flourished during such times) but during global coolings, be they due to geologic, solar or other activities.
Ian Holton has already aptly asked:
>>Ian Holton says:
November 5, 2010 at 1:36 am
Is there enough going up 6kms to cause any significant ash-gas cover to spread out for any global cooling…or is it too small at present? Any takers!<<
Possible global cooling due to these eruptions, added to the current solar inactivity and El Ninia……..brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Any takers? I'm no expert, just asking… Anthony?
Indonesian officials announced five more deaths from the suffocating lava and smoke, raising Merapi’s total death toll to at least 44, CNN reported.
ABC News (US) just said on Good Morning America (about 7:15 AM EDT) it’s now revised to over a hundred.
Not to make light of the situation, but will this interfere with the Presidential air armada as they go India and nearby places during the big tour?
While our politicians, MSM journalist try to convince us that we are all gonna die of CO2 induced global warming, however reality and our planet’s forces dictate otherwise:
http://www.meteogroup.co.uk/uk/home/weather/weather_news/news_archive/archive/2007/may/ch/ef11373c6e/article/cyclones_in_bangladesh.html
>The fiercest cyclone ever known around the Bay of Bengal struck Bangladesh on the night of 29 April 1991. It ripped across southern Chittagong with torrential rains, winds of around 250 kph (155mph), and a storm surge six metres (20 feet) high, a combination that killed at least 138,000 people and left up to 10 million homeless…….and on 12 November 1970 Bangladesh was hit by the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, and one that may have influenced the political map of the region. Although measured by wind speed it was not as strong as ‘Gorky’, the Category 3 ‘Bhola Cyclone’ accounted for at least 300,000, and probably as many as half a million, fatalities. That makes it one of the worst natural disasters of all time, perhaps worse than the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.<
People are not dying because of global warming but because of global inaction and stupidity. I may be digressing from the issue here, but what can exceed the level of the UN's stupidity when it announces the creation of the post of Earth's ambassador for aliens..in case these exist and visit us for an afternoon coffee break. Quote:Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity’s response if and when extraterrestrials make contact. Too much Stephen Spielberg movies being shown inside the UN building maybe?
I have a quick question for any vulcanologists who may be reading this; or indeed anyone with the relevant knowledge.
Is there an index or a scale that measures the comparative energy output of volcanic eruptions, as there is for earthquakes? If so, how does Merapi measure up against such eruptions as Pinatubo, or Mount Saint Helens, or even monsters such as Krakatoa and Tambora?
Any information would be welcome.
[REPLY: What you refer to is the VEI / Volcanic Explosivity Index
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/pglossary/vei.php .. ..bl57~mod]