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
David Ball (17:59:05) :
Here is some more info:….
Thank you David, I always enjoy reading articles by you Father. He reminded me that the USA now has no grain reserves. The system was abolished with the 1996 “Freedom to Farm Bill” and the last of the reserves were used up in 2008.
“In summary, we have record low grain inventories globally as we move into a new crop year. We have demand growing strongly. Which means that going forward even small crop failures are going to drive grain prices to record levels. As an investor, we continue to find these long term trends..very attractive.” Food shortfalls predicted: 2008
“Recently there have been increased calls for the development of a U.S. or international grain reserve to provide priority access to food supplies for Humanitarian needs. The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) and the North American Export Grain Association (NAEGA) strongly advise against this concept” July 22, 2008 letter to President Bush
Dan Amstutz, former VP of Cargill wrote the 1996 “Freedom to Farm bill” and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture. For this North American Export Grain Association created the Amstutz Award.
“Throughout his very successful career Dan Amstutz represented and championed ideas and goals of NAEGA membership…The Amstutz Award is given by the North American Export Grain Association in honor of Dan Amstutz and in recognition of his outstanding and extraordinary service to the export grain and oilseed trade from the United States. Appropriately, the first recipient of this distinguished service award was Mr. Amstutz.”
“In fact, the U.S. projections for the current year [2002] are that 53% of its wheat crop, 47% of cotton, 42% of rice, 35% of soybeans, and 21% of corn will be exported. This has only been made possible by the heavy subsidies and the removal of trade barriers or QRs in the developing countries.” Source
Cargill by the way is the second largest privately held corporation in the USA
Has anyone calculated how much carbon dioxide
emission is being aborted by the cancellation of 17, 000
airplane flights vs the carbon dioxide emitted by
the volcano?
Has the volcano actually improved Europe air “quality”?
Also will the Bonn conference be aborted?
No essays, please.
Also, we will learn whether this volcanoe heats the atmosphere or cools it.
Dear Anthony
Please accept my apologies I was joking?
I had some thoughts too
I think this could possibly afftect the weather for some time to come.
Is it any wonder then that because of the billowing plumes of ash coming from the Eyjafjallajokull glacier near Reykjavík, Iceland, hundreds of thousands of passengers now find themselves ‘fortunately’ grounded?
http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/04/under-proverbial-cloud.html
Mike Odin (05:31:36)
In the excellent book The Resilient Earth (I have only read parts — but as always good parts — of it, since I’m not a climate sceintist), by Doug L Hoffman och Allen Simmons, they mention this in chapter 7:
“All volcanoes combined produce about 500,000,000
tons (½ a gigaton) of CO2 per year, about 2.8% of
man’s yearly emissions. But, over long periods of
time, the contribution of volcanoes can be
significant. There have been periods in Earth’s past
that had higher levels of volcanic activity.”
http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/pdfs/the_resilient_earth-chapter_7.pdf
They is also mention volcanoes in chapter 5. E g this interresting stuff:
In most discussions about CO2 and the greenhouse
effect, volcanoes are mentioned as a rather minor
source of gas emissions (page 82). Yet scientists
have credited volcanic CO2 with ending the drastic
snowball Earth ice ages of the Precambrian.
Though biologic activity controls the short-term
carbon balance, in the long-term volcanoes provide
the majority of atmospheric carbon. This can be
shown with some simple math. […]
http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/pdfs/the_resilient_earth-chapter_5.pdf
(BTW, I think 1000s of airplanes with good fossil burning, or 100000 of cars with catalyzer, is far more clean than this ash spewing volcano. This is more like a million of the DDR car Trabant?)
BrianMcL (13:43:27) :
“Interesting point quoted on BBC radio 5 Live Drive this evening.
Apparently Friends of the Earth are celebrating the fact that the airports closure has saved loads of CO2 from being emitted today.
Somehow I fear that they’re only giving part of the story here…….”
Ridiculous people.
Don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a thread’s comments before, good job!
CNN just made a blooper by posting a picture of a sunset in Hoofdorp, Netherlands off a sunset last night. I live nearby and I can tell you. The ashcloud was still on the Norhtsea during the sunset. I am concerned about the way media is not cheking there sources.
“Apparently Friends of the Earth are celebrating the fact that the airports closure has saved loads of CO2 from being emitted today.”
…What do they think is coming out of the top of that volcano? Enough superheated carbon dioxide to force hundreds of thousands of tons of ash into the air, perhaps? Or maybe it’s just some form of fairy dust? Has anyone in FoE checked if one volcano emits more carbon dioxide in one day than all the jet planes in the world put together do in ten years? Or maybe they rejoice when millions of people have had their lives and jobs disrupted because, after all, they are just a bunch of rabid human-haters?
Per Strandberg (00:59:33) And it forms sulphurous acid in the lungs. I once was in the middle of a SO2 cloud dragging near the ground (caused by an accident at a zinc refinery where I worked) and I had left my mask at my desk, I just fainted. This gas , as you know, is heavier than air, so it has to be removed out from the lungs by a current of oxygen, mechanically, so to say. Everyone seem to have forgotten here that SO2 is the “seed” in water droplets formation and hence of cloud formation, and if in excessive or concentrated amounts can originate the famous “acid rain”, so…., now you know that your car’s exhaust is like a fresh summer breeze compared with this.
Mother Gaia is just sharpen its aim….next time it will be more precise,…she is drawing near…a good hit and there will be almost no more enemy fire from climate change lines. Sorry if some collateral damage: This is not an excercise!!
CRU UNDER SOMBER CLOUDS!!!!
Linked on the Eruptions Blog
Eyjafjallajökull eruption continues to wreak havoc across Europe
An article on tv2nyhetene
Norwegian satellite photo shows the ash cloud from the volcano
machine translated via Google Translate
[quote]Peter Hearnden (09:43:11) :
[snip]
“Denialists” is not acceptable here. Take it elsewhere. ~dbstealey, mod.[/quote]
What a surprise, censorship on WUWT. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Connor (04:25:46),
That was parody, right? If not, you just don’t understand what censorship is.
I and many other commenters here have had inconvenient posts disputing the CAGW agenda at RealClimate [and climate progress, tamino, etc.] deleted in their entirety without ever being posted. That is censorship — not the barring of a deliberately insulting word.
Barring the use of objectionable language, specifically the use of “denialist,” which is meant to demonize others by comparing them to Holocaust deniers is not censorship, any more than refusing to allow people to use a profane word in a church is censorship.
Unlike true censoring blogs like RealClimate, this site allows and encourages different points of view. The proscription against the derogatory and inflammatory term “denialist” has been made clear at the “Best Science” site. It is not acceptable here, where we are guests and expected act the part.
Censorship is government banning of free speech. RealClimate is funded by the government, because Gavin Schmidt, an employee of NASA and paid by the taxpayers, routinely and extensively moderates the RealClimate blog during his working hours. Complaints are currently in the system over that very issue. But here, government employees are not being paid from the public treasury to restrict your freedom of speech. Simply use a different term, and your problem goes away. What’s so hard about that?
If you have a problem with the barring of the word “denialist,” there are numerous other blogs where you can use the term, and where the use of that offensive label is actively encouraged.
See the difference?
LOL @ur momisugly “Best Science sit”, so you guys know how to motivate your minions to freak online polls, that doesn’t give you any scientific credibility
You know what I think?
Murder rates are a big lie made up by politicians and the liberal media.
I don’t know anyone who has been murdered, so I don’t believe people actually kill each other. My neighborhood is perfectly safe, and people don’t even yell at each other here. And people have died of natural causes for hundreds of years!! We can’t just start off blaming this on guns and knives, because there are plenty of other reasons why they could have died. Just open your mind people.
And I don’t have any good reason to believe the crime stories and statistics they talk about on TV. Politicians are just trying to scare us to get votes, so they can raise my taxes to pay for things like prisons and police cars. I know you are one of those so-called “smart people” and you are going to say, “but look at all the evidence and the numbers” and blah blah blah. I don’t believe that crap, because they were made up in the far left wing criminology colleges. I never believe anything one of those democrats say…
[snip – we aren’t going to have a denialism discussion hijack this thread – not interested in your protests that will follow either]
Pathetic. enjoy your little make believe world!
REPLY: Heh, enjoy yours. What’s pathetic is that you feel the need to call people names and label them. I simply will not have a discussion of your favoritism of the label “denier” here. That’s a sure sign of insecurity when you fall back on name calling and labels.
You are free to comment on anything else. Now scurry off and we’ll watch your report how “terrible” we are on other blogs, your MO is well known. – A
man i was going to go Iceland and my flight was cancelled
this is not fair why today
[snip] How many times do you have to be told that calling people denialists is not acceptable here? ~dbs, mod.
I was wondering, is it possible that this big cloud of volcanic ash caused lower temperatures in Europe this weekend? Seems logical… Any comments? Thank you bye
My earnest wish is that Government of affected countries would tread with caution, the lives of their citizens should be accorded utmost priority and not economic loses. The rush to open up air space by some countries because of economic consideration should be reconsidered, let’s allow experts decree the safety slogan before using people as guinea pigs.