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.
Once in a lifetime viewing opportunities!
I can see the appeal in wanting to witness something spectacular, but the making of documentary for Dante’s Peak put me off a little. Producers looked for volcanologists to consult on the film, many were dead. Having read more about them, think it’s something I’d want to study from a safe distance.
I’ve been following the reports on this here-
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc108?OpenForm&emid=VO-2009-000259-PHL&rc=3
DavidE (12:21:34)
It could be possible to argue that the Taupo eruption of 210CE (or possibly 186CE if red sky observations from Rome and China at that time give a truer date) caused the end of the Roman Climate Optimum. The problem comes with trying to attribute one simple cause to a very complex system, sort of like warming is caused by CO2. It is more likely that the Taupo eruption merely coincided with the ending of the optimum, but may have accelerated the effect.
Earlier this year when two volcanoes erupted – one in Alaska and one in the Kamkatcha peninsula – I briefly mentioned the possibility a climate change in the Northern Hemisphere. Has anyone linked those eruptions with AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi’s prediction of a much colder winter in North America?
It’s cool how the earth regulates itself. No men needed.
Quick, somebody contact the Fonz and get him over there to that volcano.
I’ve been watching the Mayon news for about 2 weeks now, and all the sources seem to agree that Mayon will not be another Pinatubo. I note that somewhere between 3000 and 6000 tons of sulfur dioxide is being produced a day – would this be a significant quantity, cooling-wise, over the course of a month?
Also, an earlier poster asked about the correlation between the solar minimum and volcanism. As far as I know, there is no study that shows such a correlation, although this study:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/buvw2tq081013210/
finds that “Earthquakes occur frequently around the minimum years of solar activity” and shows other related correlations. Also, the Year without a Summer (1816) occurred at the end of the Dalton Minimum, “caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over 1,600 years.” (from Wikipedia).
An unusual calm in the last 24 hrs according to this Philippino paper:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091231-244760/Deadly-calm-over-Mayon
“This morning, Mayon even appeared to be not emitting smoke from the crater. This is not normal. For an erupting volcano, this thing is dramatically very unusual,” volcanologist Eduardo Laguerta said Wednesday. (but note that this artlicle posted 6 hours ago is not such recent news as we are now at 6.30 am Thursday.)
@ur momisugly DavidE (12:21:34) :Is there any correlation between Solar minima & volcanic activity?
I seem to recall Leif saying that the Maunder & Dalton minima were times of high volcanic activity is why I ask.
Apparently there is a negative correlation:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=2003ESASP.535..393S&db_key=AST&page_ind=1&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES
“Prolonged maxima of solar activity correspond to prolonged minima of volcanic activity, and vice versa. This regularity is more pronounced during the last three centuries […]”
Cosmic ray flux? Spin orbit coupling? Angular momentum? Magnetic field? The geomagnetic changes also correlate with cooling, but I have no idea. The correlation is there, but the causality isn’t demonstrated–yet. Now that people are looking, maybe it won’t be long before they find it.
From what I can see (and I’m not a scientist, but I can read), whatever is causing geomagnetic field changes is also causing the volcanic eruptions. Both events seem to be correlated with solar minima.
That question leads to another, maybe self-evident one. If there is a correlation between solar minima and volcanic activity, wouldn’t we also see a correlation between solar minima and earthquake activity (separate from those that occur with volcanoes)?
Oops, never mind. Madman (14:39:30) just answered my question:
@Also, an earlier poster asked about the correlation between the solar minimum and volcanism. As far as I know, there is no study that shows such a correlation, although this study:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/buvw2tq081013210/
finds that “Earthquakes occur frequently around the minimum years of solar activity” and shows other related correlations. Also, the Year without a Summer (1816) occurred at the end of the Dalton Minimum, “caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over 1,600 years.” (from Wikipedia).”
I’d like to point out that it was already cooling BEFORE Tambora exploded. My 7th grader just wrote a paper on Tambora and that stuck in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBNgRC-cYpw
For me still a very impressive documentary about the Pinatubo eruption, awesome nature at her best.
Ric Werme (14:19:36) :
Thanks for your hour of work in making that post and the links.
Let’s just hope the eruption is a minor one, like the 2006 eruption. Currently, the 2009/10 El Nino is large enough to create a step change in the East Indian and West Pacific Ocean SST anomalies and it would be nice to illustrate the effect again without the volcano noise on the instrument temperature record.
I hate volcano noise–not the sound, the multiyear dip and rebound in surface temperatures.
Europe… But you’d starve to death the next winter.
It would be really bad. Jackson Hole would be vaporized. Casper and Cheyenne would probably be obliterated. Denver would be buried under ash pretty quickly.
Thick ash layers would be deposited as far west as California and as far south as North Texas. The subsequent volcanic winter (or winters) would be devastating.
The Unites States would effectively be neutralized as a functioning nation.
Leif Svalgaard (14:04:51) :
The 1814 Explosion of Mayon was probably one of the reasons that the Dalton minimum was a time of low temperatures,
Lets not forget of course that all these volcanoes seem to become more active after a decade or two of low solar output and solar induced cooling. They only serve to increase the rate of cooling, they are not the cause.
The real joker in the volcanic pack is Chaiten. It’s still code red 18 months after the start of it’s eruption. The dome/domes on top of the former caldera keep getting larger daily. This is an unprecedented event and totally unpredictable. Even tough it’s at a lower latitude the potential of a massive eruption is lurking.
Mayon has history and somewhat “predictable”. Chaiten is an unknown.
Indonesia – the country adjacent to the Philippines has the most active volcanoes on the planet. Indonesia also straddles the equator. History has shown that Indonesian volcanoes have effected climate patterns in recent periods e.g. Krakatau and especially Tambora. There is one theory that a very large eruption of Krakatau in the 5th century caused the beginning of the dark ages.
The Les Francis prediction for a Mayon eruption is a VE-I of 4 – just an irritant to the worlds weather i.e. no great drama.
Madman (14:39:30) : & Kay (14:41:49) :
Thanks. That’s about what I had in mind.
Now to find out why.
DaveE.
Have been watching these reports for a few days now. Here’s the SO2 emissions since the 17th in tonnes/day:
Note from the latest bulletin, more fits and starts to come maybe:
Good summary of past activity here. I read somewhere that 40,000 people in an 8km radius have been evacuated. Sincere best wishes to them all.
Dave Middleton (15:00:47) :
Thanks. Hopefully that thing waits until the middle of the next ice age.
It’s not possible for Mayor explosion to be even half of Pinatubo explosion. Mayon is exploding every 5-6 yrs now, used to be every 10 yrs until about 3 decades ago. So there is no huge energy below it because of frequent explosion. Pinatubo was “inactive” for more than 600 yrs, the energy below it was so huge. When it suddenly woke up, it blew up whole big mountain of rocks, sand, soil and gases.
To have much of a global cooling affect, volcanoes have to erupt explosively, with enough power to send sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Not every volcano does that, and not all big ones do. In some cases you’ll get a lot of ash and not too much sulfur dioxide. In others you’ll get a lot of the force directed sideways and the sulfur dioxide will mostly stay low enough to get rained out.
You can definitely see the really big volcanoes in the temperature record, especially when the temperatures haven’t been excessively smoothed. Krakatoa shows up big time, as does Pinatubo. The records weren’t good enough to really know how big of an impact there was back in 1809 and 1815 when we had back-to-back volcanoes, at least one of which and probably both of which were bigger than Krakatoa, but that was probably the cause of New England’s “Year Without a Summer”, when they had winter conditions in June, and hard frosts in both July and August.
A big enough volcano can cause major food problems. One in Peru in the 1600s probably caused a famine in Russia that killed 2 million people, about a third of the Russian population at the time. The government or some other body really should be keeping at least several months of food on hand, because there are a myriad of things that can lead to a lost crop year.
It would be interesting to try to figure out how long a volcano-based cooling lasts. My understanding is that most of the sulfur dioxide from Pinatubo washed out in about three years. That probably wouldn’t be the end of the cooling impact though. Oceans would be somewhat cooler than they would have been in the absence of the volcano, and it would take a while for that to even out. Apparently ozone gets depleted in the big eruptions, and ozone depletion has a minor cooling impact. Are there other impacts? Does the ash fertilize the soil and lead to growth pulls carbon out of the atmosphere? Does it lead to temporary surges in plankton growth by providing nutrients to nutrient-poor areas of the ocean–which would lead to temporarily lower CO2 levels? If so, how long would it take for that impact to fade?
Of course volcanoes also produce carbon dioxide in relatively large quantities, though not in quantities comparable to what we produce–at least the ones we’ve been able to measure haven’t.
I was looking at one of the global temperature averages a while back (don’t remember which one) and just eyeballing it, it looked to me as though temperatures were on a slight upward trend before Krakatoa, dropped abruptly, then didn’t get back to the trend line they had been on for at least twenty to thirty years, and possibly fifty. That may just be my eyes seeing a pattern that really isn’t there. I’ve looked for that pattern in other charts and haven’t seen it to the same extent, though it looks like there was a decade-plus drop in most of the ones I’ve seen.
It would be kind of ironic if we discovered that a lot of the upward trend line in temperatures from the 1800s to now was because they happened to have bigger volcanoes and some mechanism caused the impact of the really big ones to stretch for several decades rather than just a few years. I wonder what kind of a trend line you would get if you pulled out the years from the time of a major volcano (of Krakatoa or at least Pinatubo-size) until the five year average was back to the level right before the volcano. I’m guessing it would be considerably flatter than one that included the volcano cooling years.
@Gail Combs
Be careful relying on trade publications and newspaper articles that cherry-pick data. Yes, the wheat carryout (stocks at end of season) in ’08 were very low at ~300 million bu, but the 08-09 plantings were enormous (and flour extraction was way up), and the carryout now is 657 MM bu. This is close to the 777 for 01, and the estimate for next season is over 900 MM bu. (Source ProExporter Dec 12 report). Bad weather would reduce output, but it shouldn’t be a disaster.
There are several others that are stirring also. A couple in Vanuatu, Etna, one in Kamchatka, etc. in the last 3 weeks. http://www.volcanolive.com/news.html
Will this counter the El Nino? Overwhelm it? Will the plume be dragged across the Pacific by the jet stream?
Nonoy Oplas (15:16:26) :
“natubo was “inactive” for more than 600 yrs, the energy below it was so huge. When it suddenly woke up, it blew up whole big mountain of rocks, sand, soil and gases.”
St. Helens was active prior to it’s having blown half of it’s mass away.
I have always wondered why not enough attention isn’t paid to the global climatic effects of a possible super volcanic eruption within the next hundred years.
When AGW alarmists talk about catastrophic consequences of 3 C rise in temperatures in the next fifty to hundred years they disregard the human ingenuity and inventiveness that may avert or deal with such consequences given such a long time frame and the slow-motion changes in the global climate.
Yet a super volcanic eruption may happen at any time with very little warning and its impact on the global climate will be swift and strong. A 3 C drop in global temperatures arriving within a year and lasting for several years could have greater catastophic results considering the fact that all preparations for the future is currently geared for a warmer world. Indeed, I am very curious to know whether there has been any climate modelling that looks at the consequences of a sudden drop in global temperatures.
Maybe it is time to take the microphone from climatologists and pass it to volcanologists for a while.