Mayon – Shades of Pinatubo
Here’s a recent AP report and bulletin from local authorities. Meanwhile, fools rush in as 2400 tourists a day flock to the area.
From the Philippine institute of Volcanologyand Seismology
30 December 2009 7:00 AM
For the past 24 hours, one ash explosion occurred at Mayon Volcano (13.2576 N, 123.6856 E). The explosion produced a dirty white ash column that rose to about 100 meters above the summit and drifted to the northwest. Lava continued to flow down along the Bonga-Buyuan, Miisi and Lidong gullies. The lava front has now reached about 5.9 kilometers from the summit along the Bonga-Buyuan gully.
Mayon Volcano’s seismic network recorded 16 volcanic earthquakes. A total of 150 rock fall events related to the detachment of lava fragments at the volcano’s upper slopes was also detected by the seismic network. Yesterday’s measurement of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) emission rate yielded an average value of 4,397 tonnes per day (t/d). The volcano edifice remains inflated as indicated by the electronic tilt meter installed at the northeast sector of the volcano.
The status of Mayon Volcano is maintained at Alert Level 4. PHIVOLCS-DOST reiterates that the Extended Danger Zone (EDZ) from the summit of 8-km on the southern sector of the volcano and 7-km on the northern sector should be free from human activity. Areas just outside of this EDZ should prepare for evacuation in the event hazardous eruptions intensify. Active river channels and those perennially identified as lahar prone in the southern sector should also be avoided especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall. In addition, Civil Aviation Authorities must advise pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano’s summit as ejected ash and volcanic fragments from sudden explosions may pose hazards to aircrafts. PHIVOLCS–DOST is closely monitoring Mayon Volcano’s activity and any new significant development will be immediately posted to all concerned.
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Haha – I can see it now…
In the grand rewriting of history this season’s cold winter in the North and mild summer in the South will be attributed to volcanic activity
Maybe the NOAA guys will even “correct” it out of the records for us
When Mt. St. Helens blew, the force was equivalent to a Hiroshima-sized A bomb every second. When the grand-daddy of them all, Yellowstone, last blew, the force was equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs every second. And while the geologist in me would love to be up close and personal (my master’s thesis was on volcanism), the engineer in me wants to be watching this thing on TV in the safety of my own home, which is very distant from the vent.
Climate Cultists –Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al.– will hasten to claim Mount Mayon emissions as key to the next few decades’ radical cooling phase. But no… despite a scattering of sunspots through December, indications are that we are entering a 20 – 70 year “dead sun” period akin to previous Dalton or even Maunder Minimums. By complex chains of circumstance, solar irradiance affects various climate determinants, including cosmic rays penetrating declining gusts of “solar wind”. Milankovich Cycles play their part, but only as plate tectonics disposes continental landmasses in accordance with deep-ocean currents affecting atmospheric circulation patterns.
From 1645 – 1715, the last Maunder Minimum defined the depth of a 500-year Little Ice Age, when wolves froze to death in Rhineland forests and Louis XIV’s wine-glass glazed over in his Palace of Versailles. Meantime, well-defined Pleistocene Era glaciations averaging 102,000 years display median 12,250-year remissions. Since continental ice sheets receded by BC 8800, only to be set back to BC 7300 by a 1,500-year “cold shock” called the Younger Dryas, our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch, Earth’s immemorial “long summer”, was statistically due to peter out in AD 2000 + (12,250 – 12,300) = AD 1950.
Given Luddite sociopaths’ determined sabotage of the U.S. energy economy over forty years, treating coal, oil, and nuclear power as luxuries rather than necessities, death-eating Warmists will feast on mega-deaths as Ice Time looms. Depend upon it, Al Gore and his criminally malfeasant ilk will admit to nothing as civilization crumbles in their wake.
So here is the new narrative that will play out in the next 2 months –
“Gee – the volcano blew and we should see decreasing temperatures due to the particulates in the upper atmosphere, and yet look at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Where is the snow in Vancouver? It must be Global Warming!”
That story will ignore several facts –
1) That Vancouver / British Columbia occupies the warm corner of Canada and that Vancouver doesn’t have snow very often. The only reason for the Olympics is that Whistler / Blackcomb are nearby and do have good snow coverage in winter and will therefore host the alpine events. In nearby Victoria British Columbia you can find palm trees – even dendronologists agree that palm trees are not found in snowy regions.
2) That the cold jet stream that is about to deep freeze the midwestern and eastern US and Canada will result in a warming on the western coast of the continent.
But never mind such – the narrative will be adopted and the alarmists will scream (like always) and anyone pointing out simple observations and weather patterns will be informed that they are deniers.
So how much CO2 do we need to put out to offset the anticipated cooling effects?
Bret (12:50:13) :
Smell of the sulphur? You mean that George W. Bush was there?
/Sarcasm
Mojo, Take a look at the picture on wikipedia for Mt Pinatubo. I imagine it’s quite the viewing opportunity (at least briefly).
Boballab, The PI was home away from home for me when I was on Blue Ridge in Yoko. I understand my favorite bar on Magsaysay, Slim’s, was crushed by the ash.
“The Mayon volcano has a track record of generatind nuées ardentes during its rather violent eruptions. These are very bad things. They are the worst form of pyroclastic flows.”
Correction, they are the second worst form of pyroclastic flows. The worst is ignimbrites. Fortunately they are rare, the only ignimbritic eruption to occur in historical time was Katmai/Novarupta in 1912.
Interestingly both Rome and Mexico City are built largely on ignimbrites, and there seems to be no reason to suppose that the volcanoes in question are extinct.
John Blake (13:13:12) :
The Younger Dryas ended about 9750 BC, not 7300.
“Google earth” the island and have a look at the other older volcanic edifices in the area. Some of them look like collapsed calderas and others look like they blew their tops. Could be a significant dispersion of atmospheric dust by going on the the other volcanoes in the area. Then again it could all shut down tomorrow.
The data recorded by all the new global observation equipment now installed will prove invaluable. Hopefully CRU et al, will be the gatekeeper of the data.
I mean CRU et al will NOT be the gatekeepers!!
Been quite a bit of tectonic quake activity to the south and east of the volcano. Don’t know what effect it’ll have on the volcano itself. Also, the full moon is in perigee, so that will add a little more stress.
David Middleton (12:35:35) :
…. St. Pierre was four miles away from the volcano…A large black cloud …. at more than 100 miles per hour….In less than one minute it struck St. Pierre ..
Sounds like a good bit more than 100 m.p.h
In 5 days they will have pumped out more emissions than the US does in a year. Quick, put a sulphur tax on them.
@mojo
“Who considers an exploding volcano a “viewing opportunity”?
“Up close and personal” can get you dead, guys.”
Actually, vulcanologists are some of the bravest/most foolhardy of all scientists, depending on your point of view. Right up there with the obscure illness specialists who infect themselves to check the progress of the disease.
I believe they have the highest ‘death while working’ rate of all scientists…
Let’s tax it!
Let some military recon UAVs circle above it, that would make for fascinating material.
Question: Will the Philippines be taxed for all of the potential carbon emissions?
An emergency climate change meeting should convene at the base of the Mayon Volcano. All those who know the science is settled are highly encouraged to attend. Deniers are not welcome.
Question about that Yellowstone super volcano thing…
What would be a safe distance from that? What would be the guestimated radius of total destruction?
@ur momisugly John Blake
I don’t remember seeing any estimates of sunspot numbers showing Maunder or Dalton type minimums. If I remember right the latest estimates are showing the sun ramping back up next year. Is that your estimate, and if so what methods are you using to derive, and if not can you give a link please?
Thx
Lloyd
The 1814 Explosion of Mayon was probably one of the reasons that the Dalton minimum was a time of low temperatures, combined with Tambora in 1815 and the 1809 eruption of an unknown volcano [Dai, JGR, vol 96, 1991].
Could we possibly use either AlGore or Gordon Brown as volcano butt-plugs. Or maybe the both of them at the same time, if it proves big enough?
Please, PLEASE !!!!!
boballab (12:14:38) :
The last time I responded to this claim I got a thank you note from a volcanologist at the USGS. I remember some previous discussion about checking facts vs. common knowledge, and that led me to really tear into the guy who posted this claim. Hmm, I might be able to dig up the history at home. It would be worth doing, I found a very good .pdf about Yellowstone volcanism along the way. I’ll try to be kinder this pass.
You assertion that “it goes pop usually every 600,000 years and its been 640,000 since the last eruption” is half right. From http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/faq/faqactivity.php :
Is it true that the next caldera-forming eruption of Yellowstone is overdue?
No. First of all, one cannot present recurrence intervals based on only two values. It would be statistically meaningless. But for those who insist… let’s do the arithmetic. The three eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million and 0.64 million years ago. The two intervals are thus 0.8 and 0.66 million years, averaging to a 0.73 million-year interval. Again, the last eruption was 0.64 million years ago, implying that we are still about 90,000 years away from the time when we might consider calling Yellowstone overdue for another caldera-forming eruption. Nevertheless, we cannot discount the possibility of another such eruption occurring some time in the future, given Yellowstone’s volcanic history and the continued presence of magma beneath the Yellowstone caldera.
2006, heh? I was in Yellowstone in 2003 when half of the Norris Geyser Basin was closed because ground temps next to the boardwalk melted boot soles or rangers taking ground temperature measurements. (Norris Basin is the hottest of all the basins, I felt very uncomfortable there.) It was also a period when people were investigating a bulge under Yellowstone Lake. While we were there, a Bozeman newspaper ran a stupid story “Yellowstone – Ready to Blow?” There had been an earthquake swarm not long before.
“Swelled over a foot since 2006?” Given that the caldera is some 30 miles wide, one foot is hardly worth getting excited. I think the bulge under the lake uplifted part of the shore half a foot. (Most of the features people to to see in Yellowstone are within the caldera.) http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/new.html has better information. GPS data it providing a huge amount of data about such changes.
See http://tbi.montana.edu/topics/inthenews/pdfsdocs/BozemanChronicle03 copy.pdf (not the story I read, this is from December 2003) and is reasonably decent. See also my http://wermenh.com/biketour/yellowstone.html for 2003 photos and notes about changes since 1974, my only other visit to Yellowstone.
Please folks, Yellowstone is a unique and fascinating area, it does not need to be hyped with misinformation about being overdue for a replacement caldera.
Also, please take the time to do a little research before posting here – I’m not fond of off the cuff comments that take an hour of my time to iron out.