This image, acquired on 15 April 2010 by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), shows the vast cloud of volcanic ash sweeping across the UK from the eruption in Iceland, more than 1000 km away. The ash, which can be seen as the large grey streak in the image, is drifting from west to east at a height of about 11 km above the surface Earth.
An enlarged view and story follows.
It seems the Volcano has accomplished what the nutballs of “Plane Stupid” could not – shut down UK airports, including Heathrow.
Flights have been disrupted across northern Europe by volcanic ash drifting south and east from Iceland.
Airspace was closed or flights cancelled in countries including the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and France.
The ash, which can damage aeroplane engines, was produced by a volcanic eruption under a glacier in Iceland.
Flooding was reported as the glacier melted, and up to 800 people were evacuated from the area on Wednesday.
By Thursday afternoon, the UK had shut its airspace and other countries, from Belgium to Scandinavia, were in the process of following suit.
‘Wait and see’
UK airspace was shut down to all but emergency flights from midday (1100 GMT) on Thursday to 0700 BST (0600 GMT) on Friday, at the earliest. It was also closed in Ireland.
“Volcanic ash represents a significant safety threat to aircraft,” said the UK’s Air Traffic Control Service (Nats).
Airspace closed:
Oslo airport, which is Norway’s largest, was closed on Thursday morning, meaning Norwegian airspace was completely closed.
Belgium, Sweden and Denmark announced they would be shutting their entire airspace, northern Finland was closed and the Netherlands was being closed progressively.
French aviation officials said on Thursday afternoon that the main airports in Paris and other airports in the north of the country were to be closed.
more here
Stephan (10:04:57) :The 9+ is just waiting for his friend Al when he will go to his summer´s vacation residence.
I love the Google ad I got displayed with this article: “Fly to Finland” (In Norwegian; In other words, fly from Norway to Finland)
Seems to me that Iceland should get a huge carbon trading credit for this heroic contribution to lowering global temperatures.
Lucky I live Hawaii…
There are any oficial index in order to know the magnitude of an eruption?, something to be able to make equivalences with previous eruptions like the one ocurred on Pinatubo.
H.R. (10:48:19) :
…My only claim to expertise on volcanos is I know that throwing virgins in to placate the gods has been proven to reduce population
No it hasn’t. Firstly there has never been a large enough pool of virgins in the human population. Secondly their status is mostly a temporary one anyway, and has been too rarely ended by volcanism to have a measurable effect.
A fascinating film of the eruption with amazing details…
http://http.ruv.straumar.is/static.ruv.is/vefur/150410loftmyndir_vefur.wmv
Iceland takes a dump on the UK, literally. First they gave the banksters there the middle finger, now this. ROTFLMAO. Yes, what comes around goes around. It’s Karma.
When is the best moment to see the asscloud??? The sun is setting tight now in the Netherlands.
Good animation from EUMETSAT:
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/AIRMASS/WESTERNEUROPE/index.htm
Regards
asscloud…. oops I mean Ash cloud. sorry.
Im a hurry I overlooked another animated pictures:
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/ASH/ICELAND/index.htm
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/DUST/CENTRALEUROPE/index.htm
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/MICROPHYSICS/CENTRALEUROPE/index.htm
Regards
Ani fule no that globular worming result in big swings of whether such as iseland volkanoes, sno-bound americas, grate rains, ect. So no serpizes heer.
(With apologies to the much-celebrated Molesworth, 9th Grade, UK, circa 1950s.)
So it is lack of sunspots from earlier article AND volcanoes?
Dr. Masters claims that due to latitude, this event will not affect global temperatures in his latest blog entry. Save this link for when warmists attribute lack of warming to this eruption.
Interesting the way the media is playing this. The UK daily Telegraph compares the eruption to the 1783 Laki Event and states;
“The amount of gas produced was enough to cause increase temperatures for a whole summer. “
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7593716/Volcano-ash-chaos-previous-eruption-lasted-more-than-a-year.html
Yet a NASA article on the same eruption says there was up to a three degree Celsius cooling following the 1783 Icelandic eruption.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/volcano_nile.html
The Wikipedia article on the Laki event of 1783 also claims an increase in temperatures for 1783 / 84. Could have sworn it said cooling last time I checked out that reference. No citation on the ‘hottest’ reference either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
Methinks Wikipedia has been got at again.
Off topic here, Does anyone here have a list of mistakes in the summary for policy makers? Please e-mail to me of you do thanks. jigalypuff at g mail dot com
They will blaim this eruption on global warming. Global warming caused the glaciers to melt, this cap on the volcano being removed, now has allowed the lava to come to the surface.
Just wait, some warmer will say this.
Oh by the way, start calling these people ‘warmers”. It takes away their climate change hedge.
I smell sulfur both inside my apartment and outside. I live in Voss west of Bergen, Norway. They reported a couple of hours ago, that it smelled of sulfur in Bergen.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Volcanic-Ash-in-Atmosphere-Forces-Airspace-Closure-90925269.html
“What we are seeing in Iceland is that as the magma particles get towards the surface, they interact with the very cold water and they chill to form glassy fragments and these glassy fragments are small, they have sharp edges and when those get up in the air that is what is causing the risk to aviation,” says Colin Macpherson, a professor of Earth sciences at Britain’s Durham University.
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Hmmmm, they didn’t have many glaciers at Pinatubo last time I looked!! Interesting synergy, I wonder what the effect of “small glassy fragments” is upon Earth’s albedo?
Probably pretty good! Interesting times indeed!! Fireballs, earthquakes, eruptions…
Well I think I will just run out and get my car resmogged. Right now, I imagine they are willing to pass anything that emits less CO2 and particulates than another messy volcano.
Di di read that it just put out more CO2 than all the autos have put out since they were invented over 100 years ago; wazzat Otto Benz who made the first environmentally hazardous non-horse drawn buggy. Well I’ll go walk for lunch anyway; since it is Tea Party day anyway.
Something new is happening at this moment.
About half an hour ago a giant water surge (jökulhlaup) was seen coming from the glacier. Much larger than yesterday. People are being evaucated…
“The ash, which can damage aeroplane engines, was produced by a volcanic eruption under a glacier in Iceland.”
Volcano erupts under a glacier? Hmmm …would that cause melting? Naah, not man made.
Wish we could arrange for a volcano eruption under the Capitol Bldg in D.C. and maybe kick a little congressional “ash”.
I went to the website for planestupid, via the link provided by stevengoddard (09:29:27).
I would say they are just like any generation of rebellious youth, but the environmental ‘movement’, green ‘activist’ types are really adamant people. Take this, for example:
” Climate change. Yes, we’ll keep saying it until we’re blue in the face. No matter what industry would like to have us believe, there’s no way we can keep expanding air travel all over the UK and reduce our carbon emissions: high carbon industry is incompatible with a low carbon society. Period.”
Talk about inflexible!
They head up a post with: “Nigel Lawson is an arse” and conclude it with “Lawson, you’re an arse”. Eloquent they are not.
Anyway they must be in fits of rapture this evening with all airspace closed. They probably see it as a sign from ‘Gaia’ (hope I’ve spelt that right), the Earth telling us we have SINNED and we need to REPENT.
Actually, the juxtaposition (on the radio news here) of the Pope’s message that people need to repent for their sins and this volcano thing could be spun well by a good PR outfit.
Oh, and the the BBC radio gave special prominence to the residents in the Heathrow flight path area – who seemed to have had a very nice day without all that aviation going on.
So many messages! What to believe!
The BBC are exactly the type of Big Brother-controlled state media apparatus which George Orwell described in his book ‘1984’.
They will wring out of each newsworthy event some kind of propaganda advantage. Or they will try.
Is it more likely the decreased insolation will further slow the arctic ice melt, or will ash on the ice decrease its albedo accelerating ice melt?
Bill Sticker
Another significant point about the 1783-1784 eruption. It lasted 8 months. There is no doubt that there would be cooling and very significant if the current eruption is just as long or longer even though the current initial eruption was not that fierce as compared to the 1783-1784 eruption . All the signs of a potential world problem if this continues to send ash over Europe and Asia for months on end.[ potential risk only and not yet confirmed ] With all other planetary cycles headed for cooling also ,to pursue or fight global warming in this risky and very uncertain climate period would be very foolish . Yet this nonsense is starting up again at the UN despite the Copenhagen collapse.