“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
Jerome Ravetz (11:02:18) :
(…)
“…so just sending some planes up and seeing if they stay up is not a real test.”
—————
Reply:
Sending up planes to test the ash is far more extensive than what you describe. And yet isn’t that the exact modus operandi of the Catlin expedition? I wonder why, with their belief in the theory of Global Warming, they’d venture into the Arctic in the springtime when they obviously expect ice-free conditions. Sounds like they were just sending some people out to see if they stay up.
DirkH,
The Metair Dimona, NERC Dornier, SAFIRE Falcon and ATR, are all flying, or will be in the next few days to investigate the ash extent and compostition. In the meantime, plenty of data has been gathered by ground-based lidar and sun-photometers. The problems are that the risks of flying through the ash layers are still uncertain – especially for higher-speed in-situ aircraft that would give the most relevant data.
It’s been a big topic here in the German news. Test flights don’t agree with what the models say. What a surprise!
Bernd Felsche (09:49:38) :
SI agree that we must know at what levels ash are actually significant, but not just to engines but to all flight system (especially sensors).
A very good point. Airbus products (among others) rely heavily on sensors which must have unobstructed contact with the air — the sensors provide input to the computer doing the actual flying. How the computer interprets interference with pressure and temperature sensing determines what inputs it will send to the flight controls, and the pilots will become passengers until they can disengage the computer.
Ask any A-320 pilot how exciting the cockpit can get when that happens.
I don’t share other’s aversion to computer models, particularly when it comes to weather forecasting. Weather models are amazing in their accuracy for several days into the future.
The computer you are reading this on was designed using a number of very large computer models.
So, what is it about volcanoes that they might respond negatively to Solar Activity ?
A CME hits yesterday/today, and the volcano quiets down.
Coincidence due to lack of available water or the CME hit on Earth damped it down.
Haven’t heard from Piers Corbyn in a while.
The Icelandic volcano was in his latest update.
“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.”
I can’t see the reason for making two different points of what is essentially a single point: Safety (a concern both for passengers and regulators) VS. Operation (a concern for both passengers and industry).
The equation would then be:
X = F x (S/O – U)
Where:
X is regulative action – if X is bigger than 1, regulations will be imposed.
F (facts) is a scientific factor – how high is the risk, according to the best available knowledge.
S/O is the safety-over-operation factor in terms of probable “cost” (lives lost VS loss of income, jobs, convenience)
U is the urgency factor – the growing cost of not making a decision (no action – lives may be lost VS. regulation – money and jobs will be lost). Significant about U is that cost to industry and passengers will tend to rise over time, while the threat to lives will remain constant – one could therefore presume that the pressure of U will increase over time.
(Unless counterbalanced by f.ex. an increasing risk factor F, which IPCC seems to have understood).
Another property of the equation is that the factor S/O will always tend to be overrated. One reason is precaution, another is responsibility. If a scientist is trusted with the lives of passengers on one hand – and a billion industry-dollars in the other, he will tend to safeguard lives, even if the scientific risk factor (F) is slim.
Consequently, the equation of post normal science will tend to produce regulation even at a low risk, as the pressure to cease regulation mounts.
And obviously there are other factors at play here, which have yet to be worked out – f.ex. the credibility of science, the expertise of the democratic populace, and scare-fatigue, to name a couple.
Matt’s NASA post about the damage sustained to the turbine engines on the DC8 in 200 is instructive. Insidious is the watch word. The problem is: nobody knows how bad the ash is at any location at any time. Its like an icing forecast, its always given as “potential for icing” If you have appropriate di-icing equipment you can fly into certain known icing conditions. But you can’t do it in aircraft without di-icing equipment. Not legally; you might and you might get away with it, you might get away with it several times. But there are plenty of accidents out there to review at your leisure about what happens when you don’t get away with it. There isn’t any “anti-ash” equipment – and we don’t know exactly how bad the ash is or where it is. We do know that there is no good way to tell you are in it until it is potentially too late. In the risk-averse (and litigious) societies we live in today – we just can’t send airplanes full of passengers up into the ash and hope for the best.
I would, seriously, propose the following:
Send all private jet planes owned by the Climate Change community to fly through….just telling them there is a new gathering, a new climate jamboree, with lots of caviar, free loving companions, lengthy limos, etc,etc. waiting for them, say in Moscow for example. If they succeed in crossing the #**xx iceland volcanic ashes then it is OK.
Leonard Weinstein (10:54:08) :
———-
I agree. Each case needs to be considered on its own merits, and there is no need for labels as post-normal or normal or pre-normal anything to discuss these measures. If volcanic ash is known to pose a significant risk to aircraft, and you have a large cloud of the stuff moving around and area with extremely heavy traffic, it makes perfect sense to restrict flights until you can sort out things and evaluate the situation.
Cases of plain insane behaviour promoted by scientists are older than the current CAGW nonsense. In the 40s and 50s, when the lobotomy craze swept the US and various other countries, thousands and thousands of people were lobotomized and left incapacitated (or dead) after the procedure, including the sister of one US president (JFK). That kind of butchery, given the primitive to non-existent knowledge about the brain by the practicioners, can only be described as barbaric. Some countries, as early as 1950, began banning lobotomy, saying the only thing it could ever accomplish was to transform some people with mental illnesses into clinical idiots. And yet the practice continued well into the 70s. And, amazingly, some of its cutting edge “researchers” got the Nobel Prize. It is now specifically banned in most places, including many US states. I wonder how close we came in the 70s to following the recommendations of those lunatics who were urging the release of massive amounts of stuff over the poles in order to save us from the coming ice age. Similar climate engineering proposals of all kinds keep popping up, always meant to do good. Some have already been put into action, such as the official inclusion of CO2 in the list of pollutants. Next in line is the proposal to bring carbon as a key player in the financial markets. I believe we are, as a species, totally insane.
But the flight restrictions? I don’t know what’s the big deal so far. The decision is up to the aviation authorities, and one can understand those with the power to make those decisions want to be very, very sure it is safe to lift them before they do. Wouldn’t you?
You mean neither the airlines nor the engine manufacturers are capable of doing this testing and analysis? The manufacturers surely must test their engines before putting them into production. Or are you saying they only “model” their testing?
Bill – are you volunteering to fly the planes? 🙂
or at least have them fly over your house, so if the pilots have to bail out…
BTW – my reference to the likely hoax was regarding RajKapoor (08:20:17) : posting about the geothermal company…
Zero tolerance?
Is there ever zero ash in the atmosphere?
I am not a “chemtrail conspiricist” but it is amazing how different the skys of London look since the ban on flights. Not a trail in the sky. I wonder what implact on local climate those trails have? Any info? [PS not conspiracy theories please, I mean is there any decent research on this],
When you put all your eggs in one basket… etc., etc., etc.,..
With 6.5 Billion ‘Carbon Units’ infesting the planet I can see where we might need a few more lawyers now than we did… ah, say 2000 years ago; but do we need as many as we currently have? I believe there is a direct correlation between AGW and the number of lawyers on planet Earth. One sure way to reduce CO2 is to recycle 99% of the lawyers on the planet (be they practicing or no) and make them CO2 Meter Readers at HazMat sites around the Globe.
Apparently this whole non-flying european debacle is because of one single entity Met-office.
Most of europe it seems depends on Met-office, and supposedly they don’t even know how much volcanic ash there is on otherwise eruption free days. The feeble attempts at measurements they did in this case were extrapolated for the whole of europe.
Met-office could’ve helped keep losses at a minimum, but instead they helped everyone to loose maximum.
Facts uncertain: If tossing computer model virgins, for sacrifice, into Katla have any discernible and real life observable effect on local climate variability.
Values in dispute: Virginity?
Stakes high: The complete depletion of island inhabitants at 5th of may 2031.
Decisions urgent: Lunch?
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste…
Who was it said that?
Oh. here it is:
Government is a parasite in science as it disables the ability of authentic science to be the genesis for creating sound public policies.
Zero tolerance is one of the most irrational and overused ideas that goverment has adopted.
Met Office?!?!
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/met-office-atmospheric-models-cause-international-chaos-why-am-i-not-surprised/
Attn. also Dr. Ravetz.
nandheeswaran jothi (10:33:53) :
guys, don’t bite on this post “RajKapoor(08:20:17)”.
my guess: some AGW guy trying to get sceptic community look bad for treating to some hoax as real. sit tight. just so you know, the real raj kapoor is a dead Movie actor from india.
Seconded. Waaay too iffy, and easily turned to the opposite as a cynical ploy to either malign the “climate change lobby” or to demonstrate alleged sceptic irrationality in taking the bait.
“All things are possible through Post Normal Science.” So, imo, just let the noble Journalists show their stuff, whatever that is.
But, Dr. Ravetz, given some of the premises of the story, perhaps touching off big ash Volcanos as needed would also be highly recommended by Post Normal Scientists, too, as a “precaution” against CAGW ? – I think the Royal Society might have even mentioned something like this.
Dr. Jerome Ravetz: And of course, all the distortions from incompetent bureaucracies – but would we rather have no regulation at all?
False Choice. Undeveloped thought. PNS.
RajKapoor (08:20:17) :
Stuff and nonsense, people can’t make volcanoes erupt!
Love RajKapoor’s story. Presumably the evil villain had built his secret layer within the volcano itself and only the timely intervention of James Bond saved the day.
Sadly this resulted in a few explosions within the secret layer………
Ralph (11:28:45) :
“Why do you think the older 737s are still flying with only one rudder actuator (PCU), despite this failure mode ending up with several aircraft doing barrel-rolls and diving into the ground. They just make the pilots fly a little faster now, as they say this stops the aircraft turning upside down.”
The 737 ? With 47 fatal flights out of 76 million flights flown? It’s roughly the same as getting killed by lightning. If that’s the worst example you have . . .
I’m not a fan of big corporations, but I do recognize that airlines have every incentive to avoid fatalities.
“Actually, all the NASA engineers at the time warned against launching in the sub-freezing weather, as the brittleness of the rings at those temps was well known.”
Actually, no. Most of the engineering team is quite compartmentalized.
And, no, again. You needed wind shear around Max-Q, too. They could still fly when cold, just had to make sure there was little wind shear that would create a bending moment on the SRB joints when under max stress due to the flight profile.
And the o-rings were not brittle. They did not fall apart. They just were not plastic enough to deform into the void spaces.
The o rings did their job within a given flight profile quite well.
The much more common concern and MUCH bigger reason for not flying when below freezing was that ice from the launch pad could fall on the cooling tubes on the Shuttle Main Engines and damage them. This would have caused a launch pad disaster, endangering the public as well as killing the crew.