“We sent ten Boeing 747 and Airbus 340 jets on transfer flights from Munich to Frankfurt,” Lufthansa spokesman Klaus Walther told the paper. The planes were moved in order to be in the most useful place once the ban is lifted, he explained.
“Our machines flew to a height of 24,000 feet, or around 8,000 metres. In Frankfurt the machines were examined by our technicians. They didn’t find the slightest scratch on the cockpit windscreens, on the outer skin nor in the engines.”
“The flight ban, which is completely based on computer calculations, is causing economic damage in the billions. This is why, for the future, we demand that dependable measurements must be available before a flight ban is imposed.”
Source: “the Local”
At left: the model from the Met Office used to look at dispersion.
The Nuclear Accident Model (NAME) was originally developed after the nuclear accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, which highlighted the need for a capability to predict the spread and deposition of radioactive material released into the atmosphere. The model has continued to be developed and is now applied to a wide range of atmospheric pollution problems, ranging from emergency responses to daily air-quality forecasts.
Over the years, NAME has been applied to a number of atmospheric releases, including radioactive releases, the Kuwaiti oil fires, major industrial fires and chemical spills, and two major volcanic eruptions that occurred in Iceland. Both of these eruptions resulted in aircraft having to be re-routed to avoid potentially dangerous ash clouds. An example of the volcanic ash guidance provided to the aviation community is shown in Figure 1.
Source: NWP Gazette
Here is what Professor Jerom Ravetz of Oxford has to say about the issue (via email):
Interim contribution to the Post-Normal Science debate.
Considering the effects of the Icelandic volcano on air transport, we seem to have:
- Facts Uncertain: how thin must the dust be, for it to be safe enough for flying?
- Values in Dispute: Regulators wanting safety at all costs, others needing to get flying now.
- Stakes High: Crippling costs to industry, versus big risks to aircraft and people.
- Decisions Urgent: Every day the immediate costs mount, and the long-term costs grow.
Is this analysis an invitation to scientists to cheat? Some of my critics would say so, and perhaps even some of my supporters as well!
h/t to WUWT readers Nigel Brereton and Bernd Felsche
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Yet again we see computer models that cannot get the weather right months in advance, claim that they can predict climate 100 years from now, & now tell uss where a dust cloud is or isn’t going to be!
There just has to be a safe upper & lower limit of volcanic ash definition as we in the construction industry have been operate a trigger system with the Interdepartrmental Committee on the Redevlopment of Contaminated Land guidance!
Funny, on the NationalPost today there is an article about how the EU is planning on using taxpayers money to send poor people on vacations. They say that vacationing is a `human right`. Where do they keep finding all of these extra tax dollars..
I thought that Global Warming science has proven that computer models are reality, not that reality is reality…
I wonder if the 10 747s and A340s were a sort of sacrifice to the volcano in lieu of the traditional virgins, as they couldn’t find any on short notice?
@ScientistforTruth,
Clearly it is the ‘wrong sort of ash’?
Iceland major volcanic eruptions since 800AD
CENTURY -ALL ERUPTIONS [KATLA ERUPTIONS]
800 -1[0]
900 -2[2]
1000-0[0]
1100-2[0]
1200-3[3]
1300-3[1]
1400-2[2]
1500-5[3]
1600-4[3]
1700-5[2]
1800-5[2]
1900-2[1]]
2000-1[0]
TOTAL -35[19]
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm
The analysis shows that there were fewer eruptions during the MWP and the current warm period and more eruptions during the LITTLE ICE AGE.[1500-1800 ]
KATLA is the dominant eruption [50% of all eruptions ] and historically overdue .Erupts typically 2-3 times a century but no eruption since 1918 or for 92 years. However it was also quiet 934-1210 AD or during much of the last warm period [MWP]
If Katla does erupt it is likely next year after current eruption of Eyjafjallajokul ends. The latter may continue on and then in a more subdued way and then active again type of cycle for a year. This was the pattern 1821-1823. I cannot comment on the ash issue or their models
If the models are acceptible, which model predicted the eruption? But the models failed?
What percent of the time should we go by computer models and simulation and what percent of the time do models say we should ignore the models?
@ScientistForTruth (08:05:13) :
I suggest you leave the job of aircraft safety with those who know what they are talking about!!!
Pops (08:09:18) : “Barely a peep from the sheep.”
I don’t think that contemptuous language likes this is going to help us to convince people of the strength of skeptic arguments. Most of us can be unaware and even gullible sometimes when it comes to questions outside of any expertise we may have. Slurring people who have different views from oneself is largely the domain of Real Climate and the like, lets keep it that way as it just alienates most people.
In this instance, most people have barely been exposed to any evidence that some current flying bans may be unreasonable. The only such reports I’ve seen in the media suggesting this are quoting the airlines. Airlines, to say the least, have not always put passenger safety first when money is at stake so the general public would not be unwise to treat their views with some suspicion, even if they might happen to be right in this instance.
Aristotle described motion as due to mechanical “impetus”: Released from archers’ bows, arrows fly straight, as aimed, until their impetus is exhausted, whereupon (says Aristotle) they cease moving forward and fall directly to the ground.
No-one in his right mind could ever justify such nonsense by observation; yet over some 1,800 years, to Galileo’s time, Aristotle’s physics ruled Scholastic teachings unopposed. “Post-normal Science” is just such an atavistic phenomenon, an anti-empirical/observational approach akin to sad-sack literary critics’ embrace of Derrida’s “deconstruction”, which elevates PCBS academics over any vestige of creative imagination.
Just so, staggeringly arrogant and malfeasant bureaucratic authorities actively oppose real-world constraints on power-hungry authority, which invariably acts only in the negative– never a constructive policy of monitoring activities within risk parameters, but always the playground-level approach of equating skinned knees as quadriplagic paralysis. Needless to say, reigning administrative sycophants have nothing of their own at stake… one smidgen of impact on their rent-seeking operations would instantly require ordering airlines to take flight regardless of contingent consequences.
Big Government is the Enemy of the People. Foot on neck, airlines and passengers await the fatal chop.
Just a minute. The Brits shut down Heathrow on the basis of a model from the Met Office?? Where is Piers Corbyn when you need him?
As a rule of thumb, “Zero Tolerance” can usually be substituted by “stupid” without a loss of meaning
“Facts Uncertain: how thin must the dust be, for it to be safe enough for flying?”
Since aircraft have been flying around volcanoes for decades, not to have threshhold levels (say, 100ug per cbm continuous; 1mg per cbm not exceeding one hour; 3 mg per cbm not exceeding 2 minutes etc) is unforgivable. This is therefore simply an ‘own goal’. It is negligence by the regulators (not only financial regulators guilty of this, then).
“Values in Dispute: Regulators wanting safety at all costs, others needing to get flying now.”
Give over – passengers want safety as well. The problem is conflated with the ‘facts uncertain’, since if it ‘safe enough for flying’, then that’s going to satisfy all parties.
“Stakes High: Crippling costs to industry, versus big risks to aircraft and people.
Decisions Urgent: Every day the immediate costs mount, and the long-term costs grow.”
Only because of the paralysis due to the ‘facts uncertain’, which should never have been allowed to happen. This is a self-generated problem. There was, after all, an International Symposium on Volcanic Ash and Aircraft Safety, in Seattle in 1991 NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO, see here for Proceedings:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pKY_VLqMTgsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22volcanic+ash%22+aviation+safet&lr=&cd=6#v=onepage&q&f=false
The paper by Przedpelski and Casadevall states:
“The greatest threat to aircraft and engines is presented by “new” clouds (within hours of eruption) that contain large concentrations of ash particles…The ash particle size distribution in volcanic eruption clouds should be documented. In addition, engine and (or) combustor tests should be sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish threshold values for “safe” levels of ash concentration and the “safe” range of combustor temperature. This information, combined with updated dispersion and theoretical fallout models (and with improved cloud tracking) can establish when an ash cloud ceases to be a flight hazard. These efforts will enhance aviation safety and reduce air traffic delays resulting from volcanic activity.”
Let’s face it, the regulatory authorities and the engine manufacturers have had decades to perform actually very simple and controllable experiments, and so enact the recommendations from the international symposium. I have no idea whether they did so – it appears that they focused on detection and avoidance rather than thresholds, and so we have the unacceptable situation we have today. The same type of thing occurred when London had an unexpected snowfall in 2009: not a single London bus ran that day. Strangely enough, this sort of invocation of the precautionary principle (if in doubt do nothing or shut everything down) is nothing more than a cop-out, and it is interesting to note that the more businesses are required to do ‘risk assessments’ the more the precautionary principle is employed, not the less. Risk assessment today seems to be more a process of risk identification and avoidance, giving more and more excuse to shut activities down rather than properly manage the risks.
If the authorities have not actually performed the relevant experiments to determine what ash density thresholds are commensurate with acceptable aviation risk (say, similar to other risks) – experiments that CAN be done in the lab on multiple engines in controlled conditions – and ESPECAILLY after that International Symposium 19 years ago, then they have saddled the world with the problem we are facing today. The fact that ‘scientists’ seem to want to avoid doing properly conducted experiments with copious real world observations withrobust physics is a drift back to the Aristotelian method where dogma, theory and dialectic took the place a proper evaluation of the real world. This is where we have arrived at in climate science, to a large degree.
I conclude that this is NOT a scenario suitable for Post Normal Science, but a complete fiasco that could have been avoided by the application of proper scientific method.
@jim
Indeed – here’s the interesting thing. Most of the EU’s airspace has been closed down on the say so of the Met’s model. Which some in the EU commission are starting to question:
“The science behind the model we are running at the moment is based on certain assumptions where we do not have clear scientific evidence. We don’t even know what density the cloud should be in order to affect jet … engines. We have a model that runs on mathematical projections.” – EU Commissoner Matthias Ruete
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7607216/Iceland-volcano-air-restrictions-are-excessive-says-European-Commission.html
Short flights inconclusive, eh?
http://www.flightradar24.com/ currently shows whatappears to be a test flight from Airbus Industrie (callsign F922),an A340-642, with the track first originating around Paris. The aircraft flew athigh latitude to the Germanborder and turned North until it was well over the sea and about level with the Danish border, whereup it did a U-Turn while losing altitude. The crossed the coast and headed towardsHamburg which it “buzzed” at less than 3000 m (10,000 ft), flying a loop around before turning towards Berlin. But before it was about half-way there, it turned NE, climbing gradually until it got near the coast before it again turned at the Polish border, still climbing.
But it’s not landed in Berlin. (Flights have been taking off from there all day.) F922 is currently on a track (heading) of 282 — no, now 227 — at FL410.
A B747 cargo flight left Amsterdam a while ago, now at FL290 on a track of 156.
There’s been activity like that since dawn.
JIm (08:18:41) :
Over the weekend, I did see an article somewhere that mentioned “Met Office” and “computer models.”
And I thought,
Hmmm
I saw a similar arcticle, unfortunately it’s now behind a subscription paywall. In it a spokesperson from Lufthansa said that all the aircraft groundings are solely based on computer simulations of the ash cloud from a volcanic ash center in Southern England, which passes its findings to the Met Office, which distributes it to the national authorities in Europe. Not a single weatherbaloon was sent up to actually measure if the ash is even there over Germany, he said.
Now I thought also that this sounds familiar:
– Far reaching and very expensive decisions based solely on computer models
– No independent measurement of real world data
– Ignoring real world data from test flights
– Met Office involved
Where have I heard that before?
Tell the decision makers who are trying to duck the responsibility for the consequences of their decisions the following:
1. You picked the software program
2. You picked the people to run the program
3. You picked the people who selected the data for the program to use
4. You made the decision to rely on the computer output
5. A computer can do only what it is told to do
6. You are responsible for the consequences, not the computer
Unfortunately, this is asking them to deal with reason, reality, and logic, Such things don’t seem to be the concern of the “decision” makers. They have the power and they will use it no matter what. That reality does not behave according to their decisions makes, in their opinion, reality wrong. The only thing that matters to them is that the rest of us have to beg “Mother may I?” before we can act.
Question: why have we allowed the inmates to run the asylum?
Question: why have we given them the tools to force their psychosis upon the rest of us?
Question: why do we accept the situation without doing something about it?
The response to the issue of airborne ash highlights the enormous loss of scientific/ engineering capability at the disposal of the UK government. At one time the resources of the National Gas Turbine Establishment and the Royal Aircraft Establishment would have been available, these institutions have been either closed or privatised. A comperehensive test and analysis program would have been initiated invoving extensive flight and ground test. In addition computer models would have been calibrated and boundary conditions determined by the use of REAL FLIGHT AND GROUND TEST MEASUREMENTS.
This will be a grand lesson in who’s got the beef in European international politics.
1. The traveling public have interests in getting where they want
or have to go, getting there affordably, and getting there safely.
2. The airlines have a quadruple interest in getting them there, getting them there safely, getting them there at a profit per seat, and maintaining their overall corporate revenue streams.
3. The EU in conjunction with several members’ nation air
administrations want no additional risks accepted by airline
companies ro get their passengers from one place to another.
They want to enforce their ability to restrict travel under the
terms of the EU charter.
4. The investors in airline companies, including those nations running their own airlines, want to stay in business while breaking even or turning a profit.
5. The insurance companies covering airline companies for risks to passengers, or assets like planes and ground facilities, and/or
unavoidable revenue or profit loss due to involuntary situations
like being grounded for “dust”.
6. The re-insurance companies that cover the insurers in case a
whopping claim can’t be immediately covered by the regular
insurance firms.
7. The individual nations who have travelers that conduct their
business on an international level and keep their respective
national economies pumping.
8. Investors and the investment community in general who hate
falling profits, stressed insurers and re-insurers, impediments
to economic expansion, and national/regional economies made
sluggish by some unnecessary government impediment.
I’m betting on No. 6, the re-insurers having the most influence.
I doubt the EU will continue to have unfettered dominion in
situations like the Icelandic eruptions in the future.
It looks like both the politics and the science have yet to be
decided.
Link Between Solar Activity and the UK’s Cold Winters
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100415080848.htm
with the obligatory disclaimer that this is minor trend within the overall scheme of AGW. How about this jarring quote:
“This year’s winter in the UK has been the 14th coldest in the last 160 years and yet the global average temperature for the same period has been the 5th highest. We have discovered that this kind of anomaly is significantly more common when solar activity is low.”
There you have it. Only the UK is affected, you see. A special place indeed, it must be.
This event is not a good advertisment for using “models”.
Here is a report from the NASA DC8 encounter with volcanic ash in 2000. It details the insidious nature of the ash – no strong indication to the pilots/crew that they were in the plume, and no readily apparent damage after the flight, but after the engines were disassembled, damage to the engines was discovered, which would have reduced the engine lifetime to 100hrs. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88751main_H-2511.pdf
Definitely not fun stuff…
Short flights inconclusive, eh?
http://www.flightradar24.com/ currently shows whatappears to be a test flight from Airbus Industrie (callsign F922),an A340-642, with the track first originating around Paris. The aircraft flew athigh latitude to the Germanborder and turned North until it was well over the sea and about level with the Danish border, whereup it did a U-Turn while losing altitude. The crossed the coast and headed towardsHamburg which it “buzzed” at less than 3000 m (10,000 ft), flying a loop around before turning towards Berlin. But before it was about half-way there, it turned NE, climbing gradually until it got near the coast before it again turned at the Polish border, still climbing.
But it’s not landed in Berlin. (Flights have been taking off from there all day.) F922 is currently on a track (heading) of 282 — no, now 201 — at FL410.
A B747 cargo flight left Amsterdam a while ago, now at FL290 on a track of 156.
There’s been activity like that since dawn.
“No threshold” is a threshold, in this case the threshold is greater than zero! ASH_LEVEL > 0.
I love double speak.
Maybe the fuss over basing the decision on a “model” rather than something as strange as “measurement” will sink in with people finally.
Hasn’t been much comment on Ravetz, per se. Is this proof of the validity of “Post Normal Science?” I do not see how. The “extended peer group” here would seem to be the travelers and airlines, wondering when it will be safe to fly again. That is not a question that depends on science. It is a question that depends on technology. Instead of looking to scientists for answers to the question, we should be looking to engineers. This is question more like whether it is safe to cross a bridge that has been stressed or damaged by an earthquake. I’ll ask an engineer the answer to that question, not a scientist.
Sorry, Dr. Ravetz. No go.
I would like to know if these models predicted that the ash cloud would end up in Canada. If not, they are truley usless.