From ESA (zoomed image below the read more line)
New satellite image of ash spewing from Iceland’s volcano
19 April 2010
In this image taken [at] (14:45 CET) by ESA’s Envisat satellite, a heavy plume of ash from the Eyjafjallajoekull Volcano is seen travelling in a roughly southeasterly direction.
The volcano has been emitting steam and ash since its recent eruptions began on 20 March, and as observable, the emissions continue. The plume, visible in brownish-grey, is approximately 400 km long. Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer instrument (MERIS) acquired this image on 19 April, while working in Full Resolution Mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 m.
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Here is a zoomed image
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Hear how Eyjafjallajökull is pronounced in Icelandic:
The name Eyja-fjalla-jökull means:
Eyja: Islands, probably Westman Islands south of the glacier.
-fjalla: mountains
-jökull: glacier.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull
Regards
Ágúst
(Iceland)
@JohnH – Maybe we can call people that are critising the MET office ‘deniers’?
There are some stunning photos here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html
We have a government that claims it can control the climate so you’d think that they’d be able to organise the strategic placing of a bloody big cork…
Re Pete H 10:12pm and others
the reason that jet engines have a problem with volcanic ash and not with sand storms relates to the composition. Most jet engines today are “high-bypass” fans. The vast majority of air does not go through the “engine” but goes through the big compressor blades. Only a small % actually goes via the combustion chamber and as a consequence (due better metals and ceramics mainly) the combustion chamber is rather warm.
Consequently, the volcanic ash is effectively melted and turns into a glass slag inside the chamber – generally considered a bad idea as it makes the “flame” go out.
Sand, on the other hand, is fine rock and requires a far higher temparture to melt, much higher than the cans in a turbine.
The amount of fine sand, water, snow and other particulates that a modern jet engine can ingest and retainrated power is phenomenal. The amount of volcanic ash they can survive is however miniscule.
Part of the problem is the “risk-tolerance” we accept from aviation. It is so safe, that when an aircraft goes down, it is generally front page news.
Even if each flight through trace volcanic ash only degraded the performance of the engine by on average 1% (say), would you get on the flight?
Considering that an engine costs about $US10 million to overhaul, that would add about $1,000 per short haul ticket (assuming you went the 100 flights) AND on average about 200 flight PER DAY, in Europe would flame out.
I’m afraid until someone invents both a way to real-time find out where the ash is AND an effective way to re-certify the engine after each flight; we will all be at the mercy of ‘mother nature’
This eruption is doing more to undermine “manmade global warming” than even climategate. What it exposes is the complete over-reaction of the Met Office based on highly speculative computer modelling and it is also quite obvious how other “scientists” are yet again jumping on the scare-bandwagon.
These scarientists are to science what quacks are to medicine. They use real scientific research and real scientific language to enrich themselves.
I’m awaiting for the following headline in a few weeks from some trough-fed researcher….
“The Icelandic volcano was a lot less damaging than scientists feared because Global Warming had reduced the size & thickness of the glacier over the volcano. Less ice meant less ash”
sarc on or off in this case?
This is not good news for AGW. If the ashes were swept in Greenland’s direction, it would be better for them, as ashes dropping on the ice would significantly rise albedo, and probably accelerate the melting. Not absolutely sure, but seems that they are going to use this as an excuse for the ice extent…
Ecotretas
@Jimmy Heigh,
How is what they can do worse than what they do?
Talking of criticism of the Met Office, here’s what their website says today:
I think they mean South-East.
In 1991 I flew past the Pinitubo volcano at 30,000ft in a 747 en route to Hong Kong. The volcano had erupted a few hours earlier as we took off from Melbourne. The plume was going way above us and was a violent gnashing of ash and lightning. The Captain never said a word as we peeled right away from it. A sight I’ll never forget.
Jimmy,
Having used several hundred litres of concentrated HF in a normal lab for dissolving silicate rocks, I can agree that it is indeed really nasty stuff. There are reports of fatalities from skin contact of only a few square inches. It seriously disturbs the electrolyte balance of the body, which shuts down in a few hours after a bad episode.
However, many of these things are like poisonous snakes. Here, most bites to humans happen when the humans try to kill the snake instead of walking away. So it is with dangerous chemicals. If you do not get close to them, they do not harm you.
I cannot recall a medical paper ever reporting an episode where numerous people were killed by HF, but then I have not done thorough research in recent years. I would be surprised if the dilute HF produced by this volcano posed a risk to humans. We are not hearing of mass hospitalisations for respiratory problems.
So please don’t spread chemophobic scare stories unless you have evidence. There is a current social wave of undeserved hysteria against chemicals, including fertilizers. I would guess that a reduction in chemical fertilizers (in order to do trendy organic farming, however defined) would already have caused many, many deaths from starvation.
I hate to defend anything the Met Office computers say in the UK, but I have to say that where I live in Devon in the SW there has been a thin, but noticeable, covering of fine dust on the car for the last three days (pale grey and rather sticky when trying to get it off the windscreen). There has also been a faint haze in the air and I have found it has made my eyes itchy when being outside for any length of time. Both these are gone this morning so maybe the ash cloud really has been having at least some effect here that has eased today.
When we have had sahara sand deposits – which happens once or twice most years – it has usually been thicker, grainier and more of a yelowish-brown colour.
Ricardo (00:36:18) :
The ash from the volcano and Saharan dust will both be predominantly fine silica. The melting points therefore won’t be appreciably different, surely?
Mike Haseler (00:37)
“These scarientists are to science what quacks are to medicine. They use real scientific research and real scientific language to enrich themselves.”
Yes, I see it the same way. We have entered The Age Of Certainty, where risk-aversion holds sway. I reckon that these quacks are feeding off an undercurrent in our society which rewards ‘wolf-criers’ and vilifies their opposite, for which I don’t have a label. How to describe those who say, “I can’t prove that this activity is 100% safe, but I have the courage to carry on because precautionary cessation has its own costs”?
The civil aviation authorities have every interest in ‘better safe than sorry’; there is today no mileage in stoicism. If our forefathers had insisted on guaranteed safety, the great voyages of exploration would never have taken place.
I see parallels between the aviation shutdown and the AGW hypothesis. In both cases the watchword is “no, but it might”. Those whose lives are ruled by “no but it might” pay a price for such overcaution.
don’t put your heaters away you may need them
Ricardo (00:36:18) :
That’s exactly what bothers me about the new debate about the flight ban.
Not only do airlines etc not know what amount of ash in the air is dangerous, they also do not know how many passes through an ash cloud it takes to damage the engines. This is, I believe, why none of the airlines protested the first few days of the flight ban. After all, disruptions have been shortlived in the past, no reason to think this would be different.
Just because a few airlines got a few planes up for a few hours means nothing really, it’s more when the skies are filled with planes again that we might see incidents happening. There are way too many flight routes for all of them to be safe under the circumstances. Flying in the face of danger belongs in the next Bond movie not in our lives.
Personally, after trying for two days to phone Ryanair I decided the ferry from Belgium to Scotland would get me home sooner. I’m not exactly looking forward to the 8 hour drive to the port, esp with three kids but I am glad we’re not flying right now. Yes, I know that driving is more dangerous than flying but it’s not like the ash is in a sharply defined area. There are patches of high concentration ash up there looking like any old cloud and you wouldn’t know the difference until it shuts down your engines. Thanks, but no thanks this week.
Must say though, given the fact that this volcano might keep going for a while we do desperately need planes equipped with particle meters like that research plane which went up Thursday and Sunday and found high ash concentrations in places.
Guy Gratton, head of the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements at Britain’s Cranfield University said in a CNN interview on Sunday they never flew into the ash cloud, their meter told them where the ash was and they “pointed their plane the other way” as fast as they could.
Surely, that might be an option to maintain a rudimentary flight schedule if you could equip some planes with these meters.
Hmmm as we’re at it, how would global warming come out in a single composite greek-rooted, nicely academic-looking word? Geopyrosis, geothermolysis, geanthropothermolysis, anthropoathmopyrexya, …
Geoff Sherrington (02:18:48) :
….”There is a current social wave of undeserved hysteria against chemicals, including fertilizers…..”
As a chemist, I couldn’t agree with you more!!!
I love it when I hear people say “there are no chemicals in there…just good natural stuff”.. Oh really? Water is no longer a chemical? And what about all that good natural stuff, like hemlock and poison ivy and mandrake and plutonium?
To be fair to the Met Office in this case their models seem to be fairly accurate. The problem seems to be with the ICAO guidelines which set a zero tolerance for ash
Geoff Sherrington (02:18:48) :
First, (being pedantic here), Jimmy compared it to excrement. My guess is if can make it through the digestive track, it can’t be that nasty. Referring to it as “nasty stuff” works a lot better for me!
The current pipsqueak of an eruption is not like past ones. I haven’t hunted them down this week, but past, much bigger, Iceland eruptions have killed livestock in France, ostensibly due to HF contamination on pasture land.
I have no idea what this eruption will turn into. The worst could be very, very bad, so I’m not even sure if it’s worth more speculation. All I know for sure is that I’m glad I’m not a public safety official in Europe!
Geoff Sherrington (02:18:48) :
You are correct our society is naive and prone to listen to garbage science with no regard to consequences of decisions.
It would be interesting to see the chemical make up of this volcanic plume. Our bodies are designed to be exposed to what is “normally” in our environment but exposing anything foreign is usually toxic. But this also is the length of exposure, what chemical compositions are being exposed and if the chemical interact with other chemicals in the environment, etc. This exposure could go on for some time.
Only time will tell if there is an increase of lung exposure diseases in the future to the areas exposed.
If I had a choice, would I live there right now and guessing the exposure to be safe?
No. But to encourage a whole country would be economic collapse in a time of high economic debt. So if it was toxic, would the leaders abandon ship?
Josualdo (04:12:36),
The IPCC will surely love it!
Geanthropothermolysis and anthropoathmopyrexya could then be argued by others, pointing out that it’s anti-geanthropothermolysis, or pseudo-anthropoathmopyrexya.
The more confused, alarmed and frightened the populace can be made to feel over natural events like volcanoes or droughts or fluctuations in Arctic ice extent, the easier it is to tax them to death and run their lives. They will be assured that their freedom is a small price to pay for their safety, and that government bureaucrats know what is best for them.
What we’re seeing are simply normal events that always occur over time. Nothing unusual is happening that hasn’t happened many times before. But with scary words, people can be convinced that the situation is abnormal, unprecedented, and that the government must save us… so the politicians and bureaucrats stand ready to rescue the sheep from natural events. For a price, of course. All we need to do is sign on the dotted line.
Here, Hanrahan is the government, speaking to the congregation:
SAID HANRAHAN by John O’Brien
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ‘ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”
“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.
“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.
“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”
“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If rain don’t come this week.”
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”
And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
Paul (3:41)
no, there is a significant difference between ‘baked’ and ‘very-recently-baked’ silicas.
I am by no means a geologist (studied a bit but it was a long, long time ago) but I know that jet engines can melt one sort but not the other.
I think the order if proof kinda goes:
– Empirical Evidence … Theory … S.W.A.G ( serious wild arse guess).
Kinda like AGW – except I think they started at the SWAG point!
Is good to know that every time the Eyjafjallajoekull Volcano has erupted, a few weeks or months after, the real BIG ONE Iceland volcano, the Katla, has erupted. Here you can find, live, data from sensors at Katla volcano. As you can see its activity is increasing:
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html