Video of the sixth eruption, from the Alaska Volcano observatory webcam system. (h/t to Ron De Haan)
There is sound in this video.
As first noticed by WUWT commenter Crosspatch last night, from seismic data, it appears Mt. Redoubt has erupted:
Crossptach at 9:41pm
Looking at this Redoubt webicorder it looks like an eruption of some sort might have started at around 2045UTC. It’s dark there now, so we won’t know until morning.
Image above h/t to The Volcansim Blog
Because the eruptions happened at night, so far we don’t have any current photography. Hopefully soon. The radar image above shows the plume clearly though. Here is a 40 frame loop showing the eruptions. (h/t Tom Woods) – Anthony
Noon Update: The most recent volcanic ash advisory from Anchorage VAAC, issued at 17:25 GMT (09:25 local time) gives the plume altitude as FL600, which is 60000 feet ot 18 kilometers (h/t to The Volcansim Blog )
FoxNews: Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt volcano erupted late [Sunday and early Monday] in “four large explosions,” sending an ash plume an estimated 9 miles into the air, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported.
“The ash cloud went to 50,000 feet, and it’s currently drifting toward the north, northeast,” said Janet Schaefer, a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Geologists at the observatory say the volcano, located 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, erupted four times, from 10:30 p.m. to 1:40 a.m. local time.
“This is a fairly large eruption, close to the larger cities in Alaska,” Geophysicist John Power said.
The current wind patterns are taking the ash cloud away from Anchorage and instead heading toward Willow and Talkneetna, two communities near Mount McKinley, North America’s largest mountain in Denali National Park.
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SO2 doesn’t seem to be an issue with this eruption. Not even close to the Kasatochi eruption in Aug 2008, or Okmok in Jul 2008, for that matter.
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/images/OMI_NH_SO2_DDC2.GIF
Okmok
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8939
Kasatochi
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8998
The ash could act as a cloud seed and end up dumping snow in the Arctic.
The webcam at the hut is working again but there isn’t much time till dark and you can’t see much today.
If the reports of the eruption size are correct it would seem that this eruption would be classified as a VEI 4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index
This is lower then Mt. St. Helens which was a 5 but larger then Cheiten this year and last which were VEI 3.
“DaveE (16:04:54) : That could lead to headlines of “UNPRECEDENTED ICE MELT” because of the absorption of the ash. 🙁
DaveE.”
I don’t think there’s enough ash to cause that Dave. Put a smiley face back on!
The webcam shows running water down the side of the mountain. That would a LOT of water!
OT
3/22/09 “…Porritt is winning scientific backing. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, will use the OPT conference, to be held at the Royal Statistical Society, to warn that population growth could help derail attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece
Couple nice sites with SO2 images of past eruptions back to the late 70’s.
http://toms.umbc.edu/archives.html
and
http://so2.umbc.edu/omi/omi_images.html
I noticed that the Arctic team is saying it is sleeting and the temp is -30 C. I highly doubt it is sleeting. Ice falling from the sky would be a better term. My understanding of sleet is a wet rain drop that is sludgy from near frozen water. At -30 C there ain’t nothin “near frozen water” about whatever falls from the sky.
Sleet is ice, Pam. They bounce off everything like marbles would. Nothing soft about them. A little warm air in the atmosphere, and it melts the snow just enough, then it refreezes in the cold air below it. Damned things hurt on a stiff wind.
For the AGW warministas to blame volcanic activity moderating climate activity then a real big bang is required. You are talking Tambora size.
Volcanic eruptions are scaled according to a logarithmic chart. Called the VEI (volcanic exposive index ( VEI 1 -8). It is a measure of the ejecta in cubic tonnes.
If you are talking St.Helens then the relevant scale is 1 cubic tonne
Katmai erupted back in 1912 the relevant scale for this is 12 cubic tonne
Pinatubo in the Philippines back in the early nineties was a 10 cubic tonne
Krakatau in 1883 measures 18 cubic tonnes
Tambora in 1815 measures 100 cubic tonnes
Tambora’s eruption caused the famous “years without summers ”
Krakatau, Katmai and Pintubo had a limited affect on the climate. – appox – 0.5 degrees.
Chaiten in Chile still has the potential for a very large event. It is a caldera.
Interesting to note that the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century was Katmai 1912 – also occurred during a very low sun activity time.
According to statistics, volcanic activity is at a historical low comparative to recent centuries of the Holocene
Krakatau’s plumes reached 100,000 ft. Very violent. The aerosols reached around the planet and lasted for years. Of course Krakatau is not far from the equator (Neither is Tambora). Even an event at high latitudes (or low as in the case of Chaiten) putting aerosols up to 100,000 ft will spread these worldwide.
Super volcanoes such as Toba and Yellowstone eruptions are measured in 1000’s of cubic tonnes of ejecta. These are of course mass extinction events.
An event such as Tambora in these times would have serious consequences for the planet.
“I noticed that the Arctic team is saying it is sleeting…”
They don’t know sleet.
Does anyone know sleet?
This place claims to:
http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/weather/precipitation.htm
It says: “Sleet is nothing more than frozen raindrops. Sleet occurs when there is a warm layer of air above a relatively deep sub-freezing layer at the surface. “
There is more and a cute little drawing too. That must be a really interesting temperature profile if it is -30 C on the surface. Be that as it may, my favorite is “graupel.” I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it!
You’re killing me Jorge.
“Krakatau, Katmai and Pintubo had a limited affect on the climate. – appox – 0.5 degrees.”
Sure, for the eruptions you state. The Krakatau eruption of 535, though was probably what caused the “dark ages”.
It doesn’t take much to cause a global catastrophe these days. All we need is *one* day of temperature far enough below freezing to kill the grain crops in the Midwestern US. A killing frost in June would do it. Such an event would drive global food prices out of the reach of many people and we, to my knowledge, have no contingency plan on the shelf to deal with such a possibility. Changing the “average temperature” doesn’t hurt … what hurts is that one frost at exactly the wrong time.
An intersting page on 535 is here.
Pamela Gray (18:05:20) :
I noticed that the Arctic team is saying it is sleeting and the temp is -30 C. I highly doubt it is sleeting. Ice falling from the sky would be a better term. My understanding of sleet is a wet rain drop that is sludgy from near frozen water. At -30 C there ain’t nothin “near frozen water” about whatever falls from the sky.
In this part of the world sleet is frozen raindrops, given a temperature inversion over ice it seems quite reasonable.
DaveE (16:04:54) :
geoff pohanka (07:06:04) :
“I hope there is a lot of dust from the eruption so that it can contribute to additional global cooling.”
Except that the ash was headed towards the pole!
Only the lower level ash, over 20,000′ it’s going east along the 60ºN parallel.
http://www.arl.noaa.gov/data/web/trajectory/alaska/volc2_GFS_024.gif
Any volcanic ash that reached the Arctic sea ice would be light and fluffy. If it was very thin it might help melt some of the sea ice, but if it was a thicker layer it would provide an insulating layer. Most volcanic ash that I have seen tends to be gray and only changes color when wet.(darker gray). Lava is a different animal.
BernardP (06:17:07) :
Sharon Begley of Newsweek has really gone over the edge in her latest panicked article on AGW: “We can’t get there from here”. Even doing everything won’t be enough to save us.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189293
That’s what you get (Sharon) for listening to a defeatist, like Chu.
Chu has also convinced the State of California to hit the panic button over a marginally low water year, comparing it with the levels of 1977, and screaming the drought is falling.
The last eruption of Redoubt occured at Solar Maximum. When the expansion of the crust had hit max. This one is at a Solar Minimum, when the contraction of the crust is at a min.
Nothing like a cracking jolt to send something on the fence to the floor.
Doesn’t mean that all volcanoes go off at Mins & Maxs, but it would be helpful to know if there were statistically more than during off times.
Looks like it might be erupting again after a few hours of quiet. Seismograph since about 1940 AKDT looks pretty “busy”.
There have been at least 7 eruptions in that area in the last 4000 years larger than Pinatubo … or maybe 7 larger than twice the size of Pinatubo might be more accurate.
The climate impact of volcanoes that far North seems to be different than equatorial eruptions, though.
Hut webcam at 1950 shows pretty large cloud. Hard to tell ash from steam in the low light, though.
Has the Catlin team not taken any measurements yet?
The massive 8.x earthquake in Alaska in 1964 was at a minimum following the SC19 supercycle max of the modern era.
The things that go on during minimum and maximums seems very interesting, but rather serious.
Jon H (09:08:56) :
Just wait, next week Al Gore will say CO2 is causing the volcano to erupt. It is equally plausible to many of his other arguments.
Obviously not mere coincidence, since volcanic eruptions occur simultaneously with CO2 increases. A smoking gun if ever there were one. Someone should apply for a government grant.
I have a cousin who’s a bush pilot up at Talkeetna. Sounds like he’ll be getting the fallout from this one. The radar showed the “cloud” return dropping to surrounding levels right after the burst, and I was unable to see any distinguishable ash cloud drifting along within the rest of the water cloud returns. Perhaps most of the ash is heavier and dropping just downwind of the volcano.