By Steve Goddard
Eyjafjallajokull continues to erupt and is again shutting down British airspace:
A statement on the Nats website said the no-fly zone will be extended between 1pm and 7pm today to include Manchester, Liverpool, Carlisle, Doncaster, Humberside and East Midlands airports, all airports in Northern Ireland and Scottish airports, including Prestwick.
The animated image below shows the Met Office ash forecast for the next few days.
They are forecasting that by May 19 the ash cloud will move to the north. Their forecasts assume a constant eruption pattern and are based on modeled changes in wind patterns. Let’s see how they do.
Mt. St Helens erupted 30 years ago this week.
What keeps the AGW scam alive is greedy politicians who want to get more tax money with which to buy more votes.
Anything the bleeding heart liberals (and a goodly number of other politicians) hate to see is people who actually work hard and earn their money spend their hard earned money the way the earners want to spend it. The politicians always have “more worthy” things to spend it on.
Dr Haraldur Sigurdsson a well known volcanologist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haraldur_Sigurdsson ) has been writing almost daily on his blog about the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull. See http://vulkan.blog.is/blog/vulkan/
Most of you may not understand much however because Haraldur is writing in Icelandic 🙂
Ed Caryl says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Yes I meant Yellowstone.
Gail Combs (07:45): You wrote: “(a) That the forcing effect of CO2 dwarfs all others such as solar and volcanic activity. Notice how H2O in all its various forms is left out of this statement?” and “It’s water stupid!”
You’re right, Gail, and water does not feature in the IPCC’s table entitled ‘Radiative Forcing of Climate 1750-2000’ (have a look at Ch.2 p.203). The idea that water is the ‘damper’ which prevents positive feedback (unstable equilibrium) is very pronising. If you have looked into this area, why not mull it over with the guys at Deltoid? The abusive ones can be quite annoying, but the odd Warmist is prepared to talk physics rather than trade insults.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php
(As they say in Mission Impossible: ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it’!)
I’m sure that they’d be pleased to meet you. Bonne chance et bon courage!
@ur momisugly Grumbler
Thank you David for clearing that up. I did not think that Mr Walsh would be so daft as to tell a complete untruth at this time and after all BA at least were proactive the last time the civil servants panicked? BA at least sent some planes up?
The Met office is not fit for purpose.
Pascvaks says (May 17, 2010 at 8:33 am): ‘“Eye-Full” a tower in France.
“Eye-Kull” a volcano in Iceland.’
Now that the volcano is famous, I suggest it do as many Hollywood celebrities have done and change its name to something that more easily rolls off the tongue (e.g. Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff became “Doris Day”, Arnold Schwarzenegger became…uh…”Governor of California”, and so on).
Of the two suggestions above, I personally favor “Eye-Full”, which it actually is. While it’s likely to be sued by the Eifel Tower, that’s not necessarily a drawback, as there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
I live in the centre of UK and I awoke to a clear bright day, the sky was crystal clear no sign of any dust on my polished car that was left out all night.
But the “invisible” volcanic ash is back! and no flights today! It really must be dangerous stuff because even though you cannot see it, no matter how hard you try, it requires all aircraft to be grounded.
I did have disturbing thoughts that when the icelandic and other volcanoes around the world have erupted in the recent past that aircraft have just kept on flying but avoiding the big black cloud, didn’t anyone realiose the danger.
The eruptions have been getting into the lower stratosphere again. Watching the farmers struggle with flooding and late spring cold, I only hope the crop maturing heat units from the sun are adequate to get the job done this summer.
“Sahara sand surprise over Wales”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7206972.stm
“People in parts of south Wales woke to find their cars and houses covered in dust which has come all the way from the Sahara Desert.”
The story is from 2008 but just to point out that storms in the Sahara transport vast amounts of dust over Europe without any disruption to air traffic.
What an insulting post, R. Gates.
I have a co-worker here, in Calgary, whose mother has taken ill in the UK. He has been unable to get to see her. His schedule doesn’t allow him to jet in and out whenever the skies happen to be opened up. He’s already had BA refund one round trip ticket, and this week’s ticket is again being refunded.
So by your logic, it’s “so much the better” that Mr. Jet-set instructor here can’t see his mother for what might be the last time.
Really, your stereotypes and prejudice about who flies and why is quite disgusting.
I have asked this before but no one has come forth with a name. There was a climatologist in the mid 80’s predicting global cooling due to coming vulcanism. He is long gone as he was in his 80’s back then. His theory was that orbital changes, not unlike the Milankovitch cycles, not only caused cooling in themselves but caused increased vulcanism due to changing tidal forces on the Earth’s magma which produced the increased vulcanism. He put on very interesting and entertaining corporate presentations of which I attended two. Anyone remember his name? I would like to look back at some of his work if it can be found. Of course it would only take one significant eruption of my neighbor in Yellowstone to set off another ice age.
Had St Helens blown two hours later than it did, hundreds of more people would have died.
At 10 am on that Sunday, a convoy of people was to be led into Spirit Lake by the Sheriff’s Department.
The eruption occurred at 8:32 am and the initiating landslide covered Spirit Lake.
Thinking about Katla, it could always be far worse than it has been in history and that is a case that must be considered.
R. Gates says:
“Jet Travel is a huge luxury and if a volcano grounds a few jet-setters now than then so much the better!”
Well then Mr Gates, lets hope it stops Mr. Gore’s Jet too!
And hopefully it will disturb one of your own holiday-trips some day.
@jorge says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:51 pm
An inconvenient fact, not to be confused with “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was also a spewing of hot, noxious gases from an ash hole.
classic, quote of the week.
The good the bad and the ugly–
http://iceagenow.com/Many_more_Iceland_volcanoes_seem_to_be_stirring.htm
If iceland volcanoes have a go
and shut down northern hemisphere
air travel for a few decades–
consumption of jet fuel will be reduced
but heating oil and bunker oil usage will increase–
–short gasoline–
long heating oil.
And those nifty microtremors are doing their dance–
Current Seismic results–
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/grf.gif
the red( 0.5 to 1.0 Hz)
is the most predictive
pre-eruption frequency–
For jet engines, an air filter wouldn’t work. Filters clog up, and if you consider the tiny size of particles involved you can imagine how small the filter “mesh” would have to be. Have you noticed how much a HEPA filter restricts a vacuum cleaner? Filtration like that would be unacceptable.
You need a diverter/deflector-type arrangement. As a simple form for visualization, picture a cone with the point going forward, and the air is being sucked out of a tube going into the side of the cone. Ash particles would move over the cone along with the air molecules. When they reach the open base of the cone, the light air molecules can easily go around the edge and then into the tube, while the heavier ash particles with more momentum will continue rearwards in the air stream.
Some energy is required to make this work since the airflow over the cone tries to suck the air out of the tube into the cone (Bernoulli’s principle, Venturi effect, etc). You need a driven system that is actively sucking in the air, and commercial jet engines are designed with wide open air intakes for efficiency. Also with too much suction you will suck in the particles as well, thus you will need a large enough area for the air intake to have just enough suction to get the needed air in with at a low enough amount of pressure/force/velocity (pick which terms you think apply) that the particles don’t come in as well.
Without examining the details, which involve irritatingly complex math, a retrofit of existing engines might be a large cone (normal aerodynamic curved side) that is mounted around the front, covering it and extending so far back, with a wide enough open space between cone and engine for needed air intake. That should keep the ash from getting in, and also help with the bird strike problem. Major Question Numero Uno is if the engines have enough suction. If so, then comes the reduced efficiency calculations. When the wind tunnel results come in (unless they are somehow completely confident with their computer models) they can calculate the extra costs and benefits of having planes that are always good to fly in an area where there might be volcanic ash, although not directly through a plume as there are other sandblasting-type effects, as opposed to the current “Maybe we’ll get lucky and can fly today!” system with better fuel mileage.
From here: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/05/basic-survival-plan.html
Ed Caryl, try this site for recent earthquake activity in Iceland. Translated from Icelandic into English (automated, not by me!)
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/viku/sidasta/
Brent Hargreaves says:
May 17, 2010 at 11:08 am
…. If you have looked into this area, why not mull it over with the guys at Deltoid? The abusive ones can be quite annoying, but the odd Warmist is prepared to talk physics rather than trade insults….
(As they say in Mission Impossible: ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it’!)
I’m sure that they’d be pleased to meet you. Bonne chance et bon courage!
____________________________________________________________________
I am just a lowly chemist (hubby is the physicist) so I am not real strong in arguing the nitty gritty of physics. However a look at this graph was enough to convince me CO2 could only be a bit player. CO2 is just a gas, present in minor concentrations and has only one effect. H2O on the other hand covers 70% of the earth and has major effects, both positive and negative, as snow, ice and in various forms of vapor. You would have to be willfully blind to think CO2 could out muscle the effects of water. (Reminds me of bambi and godzilla ) Heck climate science doesn’t have a really decent handle on clouds yet or where the “missing energy” is that Trenberth is looking for in the ocean so how could climate science possibly be “settled”?
M White says:
May 17, 2010 at 12:28 pm
“Sahara sand surprise over Wales”
BBC short on news M White. Nothing at all unusual about that. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan
Its not unusual for Sahara sand to make it to the U.S.A.
Jim G says:
May 17, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Of course it would only take one significant eruption of my neighbor in Yellowstone to set off another ice age.”
No worries there. Park regulations forbid that. It would disturb the bears.
The solution is quite simple; Just drop a decent sized nuke down the chimney and relieve the venturi pressure.
Collateral damage? Nah! Those Icelanders don’t repay their debts right?
FergalR says:
May 16, 2010 at 4:02 pm
“They can’t predict the weather 4 days hence. They know the weather will be catastrophic 100 years from now.”
Who is “they”? The general public? Because if it’s the general public, you’d be right. Ask any person from the general public to give you their forecast of the weather in their town four days hence. And then compare that forecast with the forecast of a weather company for four days hence. Nine times out of ten, the weather company is going to be a lot more accurate than Joe Public. No, they’re not always right because meteorology is one of the most complex scientific disciplines known to man. Bearing that in mind, it’s rather remarkable how accurate meteorologists are.
The other thing wrong with your statement is that you’re confusing climate with weather. Even if scientists can’t accurately forecast weather 4 days down the track (something which is not generally true in any case), that would NOT be an argument against being able to forecast the climate ten years later, since the science behind the two is quite different. One is about short-term variations in averages, whereas the other is about averages.
#
Anthony G says:
May 18, 2010 at 4:32 am
“…..The other thing wrong with your statement is that you’re confusing climate with weather. Even if scientists can’t accurately forecast weather 4 days down the track (something which is not generally true in any case), that would NOT be an argument against being able to forecast the climate ten years later, since the science behind the two is quite different. One is about short-term variations in averages, whereas the other is about averages.”
__________________________________________________________________________
It is not about “short-term variations in averages” vs “about averages”
The problem is iterations. The data from the first go of prediction is fed back into the computer for a second go and that for the third go. Since it is all predicting further and further into the future a small error is magnified. This graph show the increasing spread in a variety of weather models. Also note the spread allows the future to be matched to one of the models so a media interview can truthfully say “THE” model was accurate.
Closer to home, I see there has been a report of a small swarm of earthquakes on the west side of Mount Hood in Oregon.
http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story/Swarm-of-small-earthquakes-hit-Mt-Hood/oh-ce10s-kmRmkQbdO_pSw.cspx